Graveyard Shift
by Kaeru Shisho
Summary: The Slayers find trouble, love, and fun in AU, where some of them work for the Rubyeye Mortuary and Funeral Home. Humor, romance, and mystery subject matter warning. Finale! Please leave a note and tell us how you felt about this series.
1. Always Available

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

Warning and Disclaimer

Graveyard Shift is intended to be a romantic comedy with a mystery or two twisted into the plotline. A portion of the story takes place in an old-fashioned mortuary/funeral home. If you are sensitive to mortuary-themed humor (funerals, autopsies, and embalming) of which there is a considerable amount contained within the series, then **_please stop here. _**Most of the terms and situations are based on real occurrences, but not the characters. They are the Slayers of novel, manga, and anime fame– not ours, just borrowed.

* * *

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

CHAPTER ONE -Always Available-

"When you need us, we are there, 24 hours a day, every day."

"I am not going up to that house! Not for all the tea in Seyruun!" the pretty, blonde teenager avowed.

"Miss Filia's right, Miss Lina," said a petite brunette in more formal address. "Mr. Zelgadiss told me that the guys living there were a bunch of drug addicts and convicts. We shouldn't have to try selling these cookies to people like that." And then she said the magical words, the ones that settled Lina's mind once and for all, "_It's not safe_."

"Oh, yeah?" a smile crept to Lina's lips; a demonic gleam stole her expression. Lina was one to skip all the formalities of common speech and to be attracted to risky ventures. "Well, I'm game to try. Dear Zelly is such a delicate creature, Amelia. He probably thinks I'm a bad influence on you. Don't worry. The guys in there are at worst slackers with crummy jobs. Besides, your sister hung out with one of them last year, didn't she?"

"Friends of Nahga? Well, that settles it for me," Filia sniffed. "The anime club can go broke if selling these cookies for a fund raiser means I have to go...to that house."

Amelia was thinking that Zelgadiss-dear wasn't wrong to think Miss Lina was a bit rough-around-the-edges, when she noticed that Miss Lina had made up her mind to call at the Rubyeye household anyway. "Miss Lina!"

Yes, Lina was already striding up the walkway to the front door.

"We can't let her go alone!" Amelia insisted and grabbed Filia by the arm. "We don't have to go in, I guess. Just stand by her, in case."

"In case of what? An infectious disease outbreak? Or someone pulls a gun on her?" Filia's tirade was cut off when the door opened to Lina's pounding.

Amelia sucked in air in an audible gasp.

Filia's eyes narrowed and her lip curled as if she'd just tasted sour milk, "_Druggies_..."

Using the door to hold his body mostly upright was about all the young man at the door seemed capable of. He appeared to have been aroused from bed, and it was the late afternoon. His shirtless torso displayed a lean, pale, but well-toned chest, and below that, he was dressed in a pair of low-slung, silky black pants. His eyes were closed to the sunlight, but his wan smile encouraged Lina to go on.

"Hey," Lina began as a friendly lead into her selling patter. "Wanna buy some cookies? They're the best. Made out of artificial stuff with, I'm sure, a few real ingredients thrown in there somewhere by machines someplace, and then mass marketed for promotional use. How 'bout it?"

The man at the door appeared confused by her appearance. He rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his long, straight, black hair. The bangs fell back in place, covering his forehead completely. His smile strengthened as he noticed that three pretty ladies graced his doorstep, "Oh my..."

Another guy, several inches taller, but only a few pounds heavier, pushed into the doorway with a lanky, tanned arm, "Food's cool. Got drinks to go with that?"

Hunks of mint-green hair fell free from his headband, framing his amber eyes. 'Cave Dweller', the name of a heavy metal band long defunct, was tattooed on his bare shoulder. His outfit entailed once-white sweat pants, a torn sleeveless undershirt of a similar shade, and gray socks.

"No, idiot," Lina snapped. "COOKIES. Five bucks a box. The boxes don't hold much so buy lots."

"You got money, Xel?" the taller, green haired guy asked his roommate.

When he turned back to look at the girls, he had a narrow-eyed, edgy look that sent chills through Amelia. She was unaware that she took a step backwards putting more distance between herself and the occupants of the house. He winked at her and she nearly collapsed, weak-kneed.

Xel, meanwhile, straightened somewhat, stuffed a hand into his pants pocket, and felt around for some bills. The problem was that the loose drawstring was giving way, and he wasn't wearing anything underneath.

"Geez..." Lina moaned. "Pull up yer pants, willya? I don't need to see yer dick."

"Huh?" Xel realized what was happening and withdrew his hand, blushing hotly. "Shit, sorry... _Sorry._ Hold on. Let me get my wallet." He nearly tripped over his pant leg as he bent under the other guy's arm. "Don't go away!" he called out as he stumbled into the darkness beyond.

Lina and the green-haired guy looked one another over. "Friend of Nahga's?" they both asked simultaneously.

Lina smiled, "Yeah, I thought that's where I knew you from. Val something."

"Valgaav, yeah." Val couldn't recall Lina's name, though. It didn't bother him. He took his time looking over the over two girls and grinned as he asked, "Wanna come in?"

Filia answered before he finished the 'in', "No, thank you. We have to move on and sell all this and we only have an hour." She turned to Lina, "Who knows if that first guy will ever come back. Let's go. We're wasting our time here."

"Besides...it would be wrong to take _dirty_ money..." Amelia began, then noticed something and pointed behind an upraised hand and whispering, "Oh, too late. Look!"

Xel had returned, "How many boxes have you got?"

Lina looked around Valgaav to find the dark haired guy holding a rolled-up wad of bills. "Forty," she ventured. There were thirty or forty boxes left, but he didn't appear to be clear-headed enough to count. He did seem to have plenty of money to spend, which was good enough for Lina, even if it was drug money, or only _possibly _drug money. Money was money.

"Why don'tcha carry them all in, and we'll count'em. Just to be sure," Valgaav suggested and pushed the door open all the way. "Take a load off."

"Don't mind if I do," Lina muttered.

"It's so dark in there," Amelia said from the safety of the step just outside the entry. "We should just stack the cookie boxes inside."

"I'll open the curtains," Xel said gaily as he dashed around the front room drawing open the shades and kicking trash out of the way.

"Eh, lets just go in. Maybe they'll open a box for us to eat?" Lina said and led the way, elbowing Valgaav in the ribs in passing. "Gimme some space, move!"

That left Filia and Amelia to haul in the thirty-nine boxes of cookies from Filia's car.

Xel pealed off nine twenties, handed them to Lina and then waved another in the air, "You have change?"

Lina had already stripped the wrapping from a box of thin chocolate mints and jammed two in her mouth. "No," was her answer as she tore the bill from his hand. "I'm good for it later."

"But you're eating our stuff! I paid for that so now you owe me ten dollars," his voice rising to a whine in complaint.

Lina leaped from her seat on the floor and confronted him face-to-chest, "I SAID I'm good for it. I'll bring it by later."

"Them. You'll bring _them _by. That's _ten _dollars," he repeated with a smirky smile.

"Bite me," she clipped off without thinking. In the afternoon light, Lina noticed that his hair shone with purple highlights– pretty. Too bad he was an annoying jerk, she decided.

Before Lina turned away, Xel dipped his head, buried his fingers in her mass of red curls, and brought his mouth to her neck.

Lina noticed that suddenly there was a strong masculine scent and heated body pressed up to hers. "Aaaaaack!" she screamed and dug her nails into his arms.

He released her, but not until he had finished giving her a ruby hickey above her pulse point. "You BIT me!" she snarled and smacked whatever part of his anatomy she could reach.

A punch connected with his diaphragm, forcing the air out of his lungs. "Hughhhhhhh..." he gasped.

Valgaav broke into a part barking cough, part cackling laughter, "Oh, ho...ha...hack, hack..."

"We'd better go," Amelia said in a low voice to Filia. "This was a really bad idea."

"At least it wasn't OUR bad idea. Lina can't blame us," Filia agreed and backed up slowly toward the exit. "Too bad Gourry wasn't here. He would have flattened that little piece of creepy garbage..."

She was stopped when she contacted a firm chest. "If yer looking for the bathroom, its down the hall," Valgaav told her. His voice was low and gravely, but not harsh.

Filia shuddered. She would die before entering their polluted, scummy bathroom. "I wasn't. I was just leaving. Lina, come on!"

Meanwhile, Xel recovered from Lina's fist. "Bite you! No, not... really, I actually sucked really hard...no teeth marks, see?" Xelloss said between gasps, and then smartly put a few feet between them. "That wasn't very nice...low blow..."

Lina glared up at him, "Try a stupid stunt like that again and it'll be lower and harder."

He shook his head, "No thanks. I like my women more...docile. My name's Xel, by the way."

"Lina. And I like my men more..." she searched for the right words, "...clean, dressed, and rich."

"I'm clean! I just woke up! I showered when I got off work, ah, that was at... 9 AM," he said in his defense.

"You work at night, huh? So, we woke you up? That explains why you might do a stupid thing like that. Brain dead. I'm a bit like that when I first wake up too, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. That means, I forgive you."

"Watermelon. I like watermelon," Xel answered dreamily.

Lina squinted at him to bring him into focus, "What?"

"Your hair smells like watermelon." He smiled and stepped closer.

"Uh, yeah. So, you gotta job. Whatcha do?" Lina asked, edged further away from him, and leaned on the arm of an overstuffed chair. She looked more at ease than she felt.

"I don't want to find out," Filia said more loudly. "We really have to go, Lina."

"Hey, I'm curious," Lina insisted. She liked the way she had put both guys on the spot. They were passing the ball back and forth in silent eye-only communication.

It was Valgaav who stepped up, "We're into filming."

"You're _**MOVIE**_ actors?" Amelia cried out, her eyes wide in wonder.

Valgaav smiled and straightened, "Yeah." Nahga's younger sister was amusing him, with her big blue eyes and patent innocence.

"I've never seen you in anything," Filia sniffed.

Xelloss had crept up behind Valgaav. He could just peer over the taller man's shoulder. "Oh!" he piped up in a cheery voice, then he snaked both arms around his friend, sending one hand down his front to grab at his crotch and the other beneath his undershirt to caress his abs. "That's because we do, you know, A-aaaadult Films." He drew out the word for emphasis.

Valgaav hadn't been expecting his cousin to do that and reacted badly. He exploded, sending Xelloss careening, and chortling with hysterical laughter back onto the couch. A cloud of dust surrounded Xel, and then Val stood over him ready to pound his face in. And he might have connected in another second, had a small, gentle hand not clamped onto his arm.

"Hee, hee...don't kill me! Huuuuu...hee..." Xelloss giggled and curled instinctively into a fetal position to protect himself.

"Oh, please, no! Mr. Valgaav! Please think again!"

Filia rolled her eyes, "Oh, yeah. These guys just get better and better, the perverts!"

But Amelia's touch and sweet-toned voice cut off Valgaav's anger instantly. His mind went hazy. He felt like he was moving through a cup of honey. He turned his head and looked down, meeting her open gaze head on. His entire thinking capacity shut down as he stood as if mesmerized and locked under her power.

"He was just teasing you, wasn't he? It would be unrighteous to hit a man when he's down!"

Xelloss hadn't noticed. He still believed his friend was going to pulverize him for his stupid joke, and joke it was. Neither one of them messed around with partners of the same sex. "You can't hurt me!" Xelloss was crying. He pulled his arms above his head, wrists crossed as if they were tied together, and unfolded his legs as he continued, "If you do, I'll only be good for... restraints. Just... sub-worthy. Doomed to be the central figure of... bondage flicks."

"...sexual deviants on top of it," Filia continued to rail against continuing their stay any longer.

"What do you mean, Mr. Xelloss?" Amelia asked, very confused by his chatter.

"Don't listen to him." That advice, strangely, came from all three: Valgaav, Lina, and Filia.

Xelloss cracked open an eye to look at Amelia and noticed Valgaav staring at her with a strange vacant look on his face and his fists hanging limply at his sides, and then explained, "Bruises and lacerations are frowned on for close-up work. It limits your parts to being..."

Lina cut him off with a word, "Shuddup. Okay, Fil, I'm ready to go now."

"Oh? Going so soon?" Xelloss sat up and followed her out with his eyes. "Don't forget the change!"

"I won't," she assured him.

"I could stop by your house and get it," he suggested. "Where do you live?"

"I said I'd bring it by, and I will!"

"I could use it right away," his voice became more wistful, "It was all I had..."

"No it wasn't," she cut him off. "You had at least that much more in that wad of money. Geez, what a whiner you are. You remind me of Gourry's baby brother. How old are you, by the way? I know Valgaav's over twenty-one 'cause he and Nahga were out carousing last year."

"Ha! Then you're wrong! He's only nineteen and I am...much, much older," Xelloss had managed to walk her over to the door. "It was nice meeting you, Linaaaaa..."

"Inverse. I'm in the phone book, but don't bother calling. Thanks for doing business with you, boys!" Lina shouted and marched out the door behind Filia and a starry-eyed Amelia.

"That's the last time I am ever setting foot in that place. Honesty, Lina, the messes you get into sometimes, and now you've encouraged that one."

"Filia, I did not. I just gave him my name, which when that Valgaav guy wakes up he'll realize he knows and would have told Xel anyway so I might as well have just told him in the first place," Lina said.

"But most importantly," Amelia brightened, "We have sold all the cookies and have 200 to donate to the anime club. That should ensure us plenty to cover the movie rental fees each week so it can continue meeting all summer, don't you think?"

Filia and Lina nodded in agreement, and then they all climbed into the car to leave.

Xelloss slumped against the door jam, eyes glued to the retreating girls. "_That_ was _Lina_ Inverse?"

"Yep," Valgaav said as he crowded him in the doorway. "We have just met the younger sisters of the notorious Nahga and Luna duo."

"Amelia and Lina," Xelloss let out a sigh, "I'm in love."

"No you're not. You're in lust."

"I'm...in something."

"Trouble's the word. We both are."

"Yep," Xelloss agreed. "That acting thing, think they bought that?"

"Maybe."

"Why actors?"

Valgaav shrugged, "First thing I could come up with was the film business. They jumped to conclusions and put us into the acting roles; pretty good, considering, I think; until you f-ed it up."

"Better than the truth," Xelloss wasn't into arguing.

"Shit yeah."

"No bigger turn-off than telling girls what we really do."

"No shit," Valgaav groaned.

"Want cookies for ...what is it? Breakfast?"

"Sure," Valgaav sighed and shut the door. "Too bad summer has to come. I like it better when its dark, like in winter with the short days, ya know what I mean? Or other times when its dark and cloudy, then I don't feel like I'm missing out."

"Yeah, I get you, but it's the hours that I have trouble with still. There's no way to date properly. We have to be at work by 9PM! That kills most plans. Sure we can be up in the morning and sleep all afternoon, or sleep in the morning and have some of the late afternoon and evening to see girls, but..." Xelloss poured them both glasses of milk while Valgaav tore open a couple boxes of cookies. "You do realize that those were the first girls we have had step into our house since I've moved in here? At least when we were going to college in Atlas City we met girls."

"Yeah, like Nahga and Luna," Valgaav dipped a peanut butter flavored cookie into his milk, lost it, and used a finger to fish it out. "I just don't wanna go back to college. I got my technician's license and I got the job. You can do something else, if you want. It's just the hours that suck."

"Royally suck. And I can't do much else, if you recall, I'm here on orders from mother-dearest to 'learn the trade, Xelly-honey.'" he trilled in a falsetto voice. Xelloss intentionally filled his glass with cookies, and then mashed them down with a spoon to make a cookie-mush.

"Glad I'm not you."

"Maybe we could go into something else, like...films?"

"Eat your fing mess and shut up," Valgaav growled.

"You're in a foul mood. I know! Let's have a party this weekend. We don't work..."

"Yeah we do."

"Not Saturday or Sunday! We'll have friends over and put on some music and get a life. Whatdoya say?" Xelloss smiled.

"What friends? Everyone we know's in Atlas City."

"Well, we can invite... Amelia and Lina and...that other girl, maybe, and ask them to bring some friends. It doesn't have to be a big one." Xelloss finished the last of his breakfast 'drink' in one gulp. "Okay?"

Valgaav gave him a sideways look.

"Break you out of that shell. Do you good to be a little more outgoing."

"Sure, then."

"When I see Lina tomorrow, I'll set it all up."

"_If_ ya see her, you mean."

"I'll see her, you can bet on that," Xelloss said confidently.

"Okay, betcha ten bucks she don't show."

"Twenty she does."

In another part of town, a teenage boy nearing manhood stood in conversation with his aging, yet not elderly, grandfather. It was of the future that they spoke.

"You got me a _what?_" The slim, dark-haired boy stood stone-still, a study in tragic appeal.

"A job with a distant relation in town. You should be thankful. It pays well and the work's not hard."

The boy's expression darkened. "But, grandfather, it's MY summer vacation. I had all kinds of things planned to do. A job will eat up all my free time."

"What kinds of things?" his youthful-looking grandfather asked as he folded up the newspaper he had been reading and stacked it neatly.

"Reading..._things_..." emphasizing the word as if that gave it more meaning.

"Zelgadiss, you were the one who was complaining about getting bullied around at school. You were the one who wanted to get, as you put it, _stronger_. Now you can. Reading won't build muscles."

"But this job_ can_! How will this job make me stronger?" There was a note of anguish in the boy's tone now.

"Dead bodies are awfully heavy, I understand. After hefting a dozen or so around all day, you ought to build up some fine arm and shoulder muscles, legs too, if you learn to pick up the weight the right way and not abuse your back. I should know, many men my age are complaining all the time about their sore backs, but not I. I learned to use the proper method of..."

"DEAD BODIES!" Zelgadiss shrieked. "Why dead ones? What kind of place is it anyways?"

"Read the appointment card."

"For all your funeral arrangements, Rubyeye Funeral Home and Morgue. Giving your loved ones the most important gift of all, a final resting place in peace and security. Oh...my...dear...gods..." Zelgadiss moaned and sank to the kitchen floor. "This is horrible. I should just die now."

"You can ride your bike to get to and from work, which will strengthen your legs and build some wind. You need endurance to get by in this world," the older man continued. He was completely nonplussed by his grandson's theatrics.

"No one must ever know...ever... I'll have to keep the job a secret from everyone."

"What are you mumbling about now? You don't have time to fool around on the floor. Your interview is in 30 minutes. You have just enough time to go change your shirt and ride over there. Now GIT!"

"My life...is over... Unless," Zelgadiss' eyes brightened up, "I work the graveyard shift, and then no one will find out. I can see my friends by day and work secretly at night. Yes...that could work..."

"If you are late for the job interview, there will be no job and you will have to work for me," the grandfather said sternly.

Zanaffar Pharmaceuticals. No way did Zelgadiss want to push a mop there.

"Eek! I'm going!" Zelgadiss rushed to his room, ripped off his t-shirt, grappled into a short sleeved oxford cloth blue which had been pushed, ignored, to the back of his closet, smoothed down his hair and tied it back into a long dark ponytail, and flew out of the house to the side yard where his little-used bike leaned on a box. "Have...to...put...air in the...tires," he huffed as he gave his arms their first workout in weeks, pumping air. It took longer since the tire gauge let out half the air while he was trying to get a reading.

With a final check that the brakes were still intact, he jumped on his bike and took off for his first-time- ever job interview, with his 'Uncle' Gaav, several (hopefully hundreds of) times removed. "I hate my life."

End Graveyard Shift, CHAPTER ONE


	2. Easing a Difficult Time

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

CHAPTER TWO– Easing a Difficult Time–

"Our mission is to offer the pinnacle of perfection in services and facilities, without losing our compassion and the understanding needed by the families we serve."

* * *

Zelgadiss rolled his bike up the curb with minutes to spare. "No time to find a bike rack. Hell, it'll be safe here. Who steals bikes at funeral homes?" he reasoned aloud and left his bike leaning against the side of the building.

Once inside the colonial-style building, he was led by a pretty receptionist to the director's office.

"I see you'll be starting college in the fall. Chemistry?" Mr. Vurumagen asked in a monotone. He had scanned the resume and then settled his eyes to rest on Zelgadiss' face.

"Yes, I'm interested in forensic science, hence, this job," Zel lied coolly. He was a shoo-in for something here, he knew.

"Indeed. Well, the first-level technician positions require a high school degree and experience. You might qualify as an assistant...but...I'll have to check our current openings."

Zel's hopeful attitude plummeted.

"Hoooowever," Mr. Vurumagen drawled out as he flipped over a page in a notebook of listings, "Ah, yes, here's something. You would be available at night?"

"Night? Yes, that's fine. Perfect, in fact!"

"Well, then," Mr. Vurumagen removed a paper from the folder, presented it to Zelgadiss, and then folded his hands on the table, his expression neutral. "There is an entry level position available on the night shift. More of a custodial job really. Here is the job description, wages, and hours for you to look over."

Zelgadiss took up the offered paper and read what it said.

_MORGUE TECHNICIAN Salary Range: 1411-2610 _

_Exam: Application documents rating (training and experience). No written test._

_3 Occ_

_Type of Work: Employee assists medical examiner with post-mortem examinations._

_Training: Graduation from a standard high school or equivalent._

_Experience: One year of full-time or equivalent part-time paid medical or other technically related experience, such as physical care and support to patients, basic laboratory work, work in a veterinary office or work in a clinical setting._

_Available currently: entry level position to assist technician, base pay, GY shift 9PM - 5:00AM. _

The work was shitty, the hours were deadly, and the pay was minimum wage. It was, however, not working for his grandfather. Now that he was a high school graduate, he would 'have to start earning his keep' to continue living with his grandfather and go to college. It would mean that he could remain in Seyruun. Three years ago, his parents had decided to move to a resort in a tropical climate. Lovely place, but only for the occasional vacation, Zel had told them at the time. He thought that they could at least wait until he was out of the house first. He had his friends and culture in high school and didn't want to move away. Rezo offered to take in his grandson so that he could finish high school in his home town, but after that, 'the boy will have to start earning his keep.'

"I accept," Zel said.

"Very good. You can begin tomorrow night."

Vurumagen stood up so Zel thought he should too. "Follow me. I'll show you where you'll be working, where you'll change, the entry door and procedures. This way-"

Zelgadiss learned that he would be using a secret back entrance with a coded lock. He would change into beige coveralls, gloves, and, on occasion, a mask. He would meet the technicians that night and follow their instructions.

"Cool," Zelgadiss thought to himself. There was just enough mystery about the job to intrigue him.

After that, he returned with Mr. Vurumagen to his office where he filled out forms for another twenty minutes.

"Welcome to the family. Heh, heh... Well, _we_ think of ourselves as all family here at the Rubyeye Funeral Home and Morgue. Even those of us who are family. Like us, I married into the family and my wife's brother is, I believe, married to Mr. Gaav's wife's sister– making us related."

Zelgadiss handed the man his completed forms and blinked. "Ah, yes. Well, thank you, Sir."

He was relieved to not have to continue that conversation and traverse his family tree. Working in a house of death was one thing, but being related to the owner and its inmates was macabre. He shook the wilted hand of his employer and hastily found his way to the exit. He couldn't wait to ride home and...

"Damn it all!" Zel cursed. "My bike!"

Someone had stolen the seemingly neglected bicycle. There was nothing to do but walk home. It was a very long walk in the warming sun. By the time he rounded the corner to the block he lived on, Zelgadiss was sporting a sunburned face.

"Hey, Zelly!"

Zelgadiss froze in his spot and turned his head. Filia's car just pulled up, causing him to smile in spite of his misery. He thought she was strikingly beautiful and sexy, and although she was a year older than him, she didn't treat him differently than the guys in her class. He had skipped a grade in his primary days, and from then on he was relegated to being the smallest boy in his classes, until recently. His latest growth spurt during his senior year of high school put him solidly in the 'average' category. He was aware of his own good looks and that Filia was one of several girls who finally noticed him, now that school was over. Actually, he hoped she liked him. So, he trotted over to her car door and greeted her with a friendly, "Hey..."

"I just dropped Lina off at her place. It's hot out. You shouldn't be out without sun block."

"I know, Filia. I ought to be riding my bike, but it was stolen." That was belittling to admit and his self-confidence was suffering. Then he remembered and added, "I was at a job interview. I got the job."

"Really! Wow! That's great, Zelly. Ooooh, but that's going to mess with good times."

"Not much, I hope. I work late nights." He suddenly thought she was going to ask him the dangerous 'where and what' kind of questions, and so changed the subject. "I don't have to work tonight, want to go get something to eat...catch a movie?" He hadn't tagged the deadly-sensitive 'with just me' phrase on, hoping she might want it that way and say so.

"Yeah, okay. Let me call around and see who else wants to... I just recharged my cell phone so it should be okay."

Oh well, at least she wanted to be with him even though he'd have to share her with others.

"Lina and Gourry are a go!" Filia shouted out the window.

Zel smiled, "Of course." He thought that two couples would be an acceptable alternative.

"Sylphiel, too!" she added. "...and Amelia."

Oh, his enthusiasm plunged, Amelia. Now, he liked her fine. In fact, Zel considered her to be quite 'cute', but she just plagued him, hovering around like an adoring puppy. Amelia was the youngest of the group of friends, just a year younger than him, and the only one to return to high school next year. However, she had a huge crush on him, and she let everyone know about it. When Amelia first decided to 'make Zelly hers,' he had been enamored of another girl in his class, Lina. But when his best friend Gourry confided to him that he was 'in love, kinda' with Lina, then Zelgadiss backed off. His best friend's happiness came first, Zel decided. Besides, Lina seemed to like Gourry, too, so it was all for the best that he hadn't made any kind of move. That was how their last year of high school had ended.

Now he appeared to be available, and suddenly Filia was talking and being nice to him, which he thought had to be a good sign; he was ready to audition Filia for the staring role in his day dreams. An older woman. Things were coming together for them. It was not the time to share this 'date' with everyone, Amelia in particular. With Amelia present, he'd feel torn between being nice to her and attempting to make some progress with his Filia romance. Maybe he could talk Sylphiel into keeping Amelia busy...

"Zelly! I said: will 6:00 be okay with you? Good. Do you need a ride?"

"Yes," he muttered, feeling like a fool. What guy invited a girl out without a way to get her places?

"Okay, I'll get you. The others are arranging there own rides." Filia was stuffing her phone back into her bag, when Zel had an idea.

"That's only an hour away; would you like to come in? We can do something before we have to go," he asked.

She thought about it for a few seconds. "Sure. I'll call mom and let her know, and then I have to tell you about what happened this afternoon. We were selling cookies..."

She could have been giving him the weather report for all he cared. Zel was walking on air all the way to his front door, Filia at his side. A beautiful potential-girlfriend and a job– life was looking up for Zelgadiss.

When Lina got home there was a message waiting on her home phone. It was from Xelloss. "Hi, Xel here. I thought about the, ah...difficulties this afternoon. And so we don't have a reprise tomorrow, I'm leaving my private cell phone number. That way you can call ahead and wake me before coming." There was a pause and then in a lowered voice he signed off, "I...promise to be dressed."

"Just what I need, another guy calling me all the time." Lina didn't bother deleting the message and hurried off to her room to change clothes.

Gourry called her cell phone after Filia's invitation to join her and Zelgadiss. Gourry told her that he would be by to drive her to the restaurant in an hour or so. She smiled when she thought of Gourry. He had graduated from high school in the class ahead of hers. He was a kind person with a hunky build perfect for his job at the athletic club. Too bad it wasn't much of a career; his less-than-princely wages put him in the 'out' pile for the longest time, but now it was summer and he'd be good for a summer romance before college.

"Maybe longer than that. Too soon to tell," she thought to herself as she climbed into the shower to battle the hot day.

Thankfully, his grandfather wasn't at home. Zelgadiss hated having to introduce his friends, and especially a girl, to the man who'd ask questions and converse with intelligence and poise so that he would outshine his anxious and less talented grandson. Zel was confident, just not skillful at entertaining girls alone yet.

"Want some...thing?" Zel asked Filia as he examined the refrigerator's contents.

"Ice water. I'll get the ice," she said in her take-charge manner.

She took a short self-guided tour, stopping at his room, "I just love books. You like to read."

Zel sighed and allowed himself to smile slightly, "Score! Something in common."

They discussed and compared favorites, which was fun, and then she asked to check her e-mail. At that point, he lost her to his closest competition for which he had no answer, the internet, for the rest of the hour.

Amelia met Sylphiel at her door. Following her to her car and chattering all the way, Amelia managed to catch her friends' big news. "Someone died at the athletic club? How awful!"

"Not just someone, Mr. Tadaaki! His name means 'faithful and bright' in Japanese," she added in a dreamy voice. "He was my favorite client. I registered him that first day and wrote up his conditioning plan. Gourry handled his weight training. He was so...handsome."

Amelia watched her with growing alarm. "You weren't, that is, that wasn't the man you were telling me about, was it? You were _dating_ him? The dead man?"

Sylphiel pulled her hair back into a pony tail and started the car, "Well, he was very much alive when we took me out to dinner. Very nice...and alive."

"So, what happened? Were you with him when it...happened?"

"No, but Gourry was. I let him tell you all about it at dinner tonight. Where are we going again?"

Amelia gave her friend the directions and watched for traffic on the way.

Everyone showed up at the pizza place on time. After placing the same orders that they had for the past couple of years, they settled into parallel conversations covering two subjects: the cookie sale and the dead man.

They all agreed selling all the cookies in the one stop was fortunate, despite the buyers, and that they'd all show up to the anime club meetings over the summer.

Gourry had a few things to add to what Sylphiel knew about the death at the athletic club. "The paramedics thought he died of a heart attack, and took him to the hospital. From there, the guy goes to Rubyeye Mortuary, so there'll be a funeral on the weekend, if you wanna go to it, Sylphiel."

Zel looked up at that, but ennui set in and he sighed to himself, "This is boring. So am I. Dull, dull, dull."

The food arrived, giving reason for a lengthy lull in the conversation.

School gossip, club, more gossip, favorite music, blah, blah, blah... No good movies, out of money, nothing to do... just go home...

As the group broke up, Gourry pulled Lina to the side and asked her out the next day, "I'll call when I know if I can leave work early. Then we can go miniature golfing, okay?"

"And dinner," Lina insisted.

"Yeah, you bet!" he smiled and held open the door for her.

Zelgadiss overheard Filia telling Amelia that she was busy the next day, so he bottled up his courage to ask her out another time. "Filia-"

"Oh, Sylph, can you drop off Zel for me? I need to pickup some groceries on the way home for mom. Bye, Zel."

This was his chance to set up something, so he did his best at sounding casual, "Ahhh, just a second, Filia. Um, do you think we can get together this weekend?"

"This weekend? Oh, sure. Give me a call. Bye!"

"Okay, bye," he smiled and waved a tiny bit, and then in his head, celebrated a moment, "I did it! I asked Filia out (kinda)!"

He turned to see Amelia and Sylphiel watching him. "What?"

Sylphiel shook her head at him, "If you're going to invite her to join the bowling team, you should at least ask us first!"

Bowling team? Oh yeah... He had forgotten their tentative plans to continue their Sunday afternoon tournaments into the summer. He made a mental note of that, and then said, "She could balance out the teams then. Lina said Martina and Zangalus were signing up. It would make it four on each team. But, I hadn't actually mentioned that to her yet."

"I knew you wouldn't be so thoughtless as to leave us out of the planning!" Amelia beamed. "I think your idea is wonderful. Miss Filia is as least as good as Martina."

Zelgadiss was forgiven and with that, was dropped off at his house on good terms with his friends. He also had a good excuse to call Filia, now. He could invite her to join his bowling team. However, that wasn't all he would want to call her about.

– The next day–

"Lina? Yeah, Gourry. I got Zangalus to cover for me here, so I can be by your place in about 30 minutes. That okay?"

"Golfing? Sure. I'm ready," she hung up, and then remembered. "Shit, I gotta get that money over to that Xelloss guy. No time now. He's probably asleep anyway. I'll just give him a call and tell him I can't make it."

She replayed his earlier message, made a note of the phone number, and then dialed. She got this message: "Hello, and thank you for calling the Rubyeye Mental Health Institute," a voice which could have been Xelloss' intoned.

"Yeah, well, if you're there, Xelloss, this is Lina and I can't make it over..."

"If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly. If you have multiple personalities, press 2, 3 and 4. If you are dyslexic, press 6. Now press 9. Now press 6. Now press 9. Now press 6. If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mothership. If you have short term memory loss, press 8. If you have short term memory loss, press 8. If you have short term memory loss, press 8..."

"Oh gods, do I have to listen to the entire spiel?" Lina moaned into the mouthpiece.

"...If you have schizophrenia, listen very carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press. If you are co-dependent, ask someone to press a number for you. If you are depressed, don't bother to press any numbers. No one will be able to help you anyway. If you are paranoid, you don't need to press anything. We know who you are, we know what you want, and we know how to reach you. If you suffer from low self-esteem, please hang up because all our operators are too busy to talk to you. Otherwise, leave a message because the doctor is not...at...home!"

BEEP!

"This is the last time I'm calling you until you get this stupidly annoying message changed. Okay, so this is Lina and I can't make it over today. Ah...something came up. I'll drop the money off later. Bye."

"Nooooo...Don't hang uuuuuuup!" Xelloss woke out of his slumber nearly in time to pickup Lina's call. Nearly. He checked the clock and decided that if he hurried, he might catch her at her home before she left, or whatever. He'd risk it, anyway. A return call to her home might have been advised, but then she'd just tell him not to bother, so he didn't call. And if he hurried, Valgaav wouldn't find out that she'd blown him off and he wouldn't lose his bet.

Lina opened the door after the second ring, "You're early, ya know. I'm not quite... Eh?"

"Hello, Lina," Xelloss smiled at her obvious astonishment.

"You! What are you doing here?"

He heard a car pull up and the driver get out and stride to the door. "Well, there is the matter of ten dollars, but more importantly-"

He turned to see who Lina had been expecting. A man his stature might be intimidated by Gourry, but Xelloss had nothing if not oodles of self confidence. He went on, "Valgaav and I were thinking of having a party this weekend, Saturday." He looked Gourry in the eye. "You're welcome to bring along the other girls and anyone else. It's our first."

"First?" Lina asked.

"Since we moved from Atlas City. I'm relatively new in town and it's been a long time since he lived here."

Xelloss was watchful of the taller man, who was giving off all the warning signals: 'this girl is mine.'

"She's got plans," Gourry said in a controlled manner.

"Not on Saturday! Sounds great! I know lots of people; you care how many I invite?" Lina grinned. She loved parties but never had the money to throw the kind she liked.

Xelloss' attention was concentrated on Lina now. "Ten, twenty?"

"All right! Say twenty. You think you can handle that many?" she asked.

"Meaning: can we feed that many?" Xelloss laughed. "No problem. I'll take care of the ordering before work. Anything you suggest?"

Lina rattled off her 'dream party' selections of snacks and drinks, "And plenty of them!"

Gourry nodded his concordance, adding a few additions as she went along, "Pretzels, the straight kind, and mustard!"

Xelloss was stunned by the sheer volume of foodstuffs the pair were listing off the tops of their heads. "Where will I store it all? What will I serve it in?" he wondered, then decided to call a party supply store, at which point he heard the other man talking conversationally to Lina.

"We oughta go now, Lina, to have time to eat some first," Gourry reminded her.

"Oh, right. Well, later, Xelloss!" she said merrily as she slammed the door and waltzed past him.

He was about to mention his 'ten dollars', but decided that it would make him sound too petty. He'd have an opportunity to remind her at another time, and then in an act of generosity he would forgive the debt. He had seen his competition, and was concerned; Gourry was a kind and caring man.

Even though he knew what he wore didn't matter, that he would change into coveralls immediately once he got to work, Zelgadiss thought long and hard about his clothing before making his final selection from his wardrobe. It was his first night at his first real job, so he wanted to make a good impression.

He admired his reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the back of his bedroom door. Slim and wiry. He had been a varsity track star at high school and would be one at the university when he started in fall, he knew it. His long, dark hair was fashionably mussy, as were his expensive clothes, but it was his eyes that set him apart; large, brilliant blue-green. He pushed his chin-length bangs behind his ears for the forth time in as many seconds.

"Maybe I'll cut it short," he mused. "Maybe not. Gourry said that only the gay guys were keeping their hair trim and neat these days. Besides, hadn't Filia said how much she liked long hair on men? Or was that Amelia?"

He jumped at the sound of pounding on his door.

"If you want that ride, I'm going now."

"Okay, grandfather!"

"Find your own way home," his grandfather ordered him when he left him off at the funeral home.

"Thanks," Zel muttered with as much sincerity as he thought the situation warranted.

He scampered around to the employee's entrance, typed in the pass-code, and stepped into:

**The Cadaver Keep**

announced the hand painted sign which greeted him.

"Funny," he thought to himself. The ghoulish drips hanging from the lettering clued him in that the sign was intended to be an attempt at humor.

"He's here already."

"Cool, a real go-getter."

"Well, it is his first night," said the first male voice.

Zelgadiss folded his arms over his chest and waited to the side the moment he heard voices. Two men were entering the building from the same door he had used.

"Hello! You're on time so you must be the new guy."

Zel nodded. The man who entered first was about his height and weight with hair nearly the same, but with the bangs cut straight across at the eyebrows and the overall length shorter. His smile was nice and eyes nearly closed. His age was indeterminable, but most likely older, Zel determined. "Yeah, I'm Zel."

Valgaav followed him in. He looked from the Zel to Xel, "No fing way! I thought yer name was one-of-a-kind." He smiled at Xel, and then extended a hand to Zel, "Valgaav."

"Zelgadiss," Zel corrected. He found Valgaav to be a lot more intimidating. He was nearly a foot taller and heavier with a narrow-eyed dangerous look.

"Whew!" Xelloss exclaimed dramatically. "I'm Xelloss, but I'm called Xel, thus the problem. Zelgadiss, huh? Maybe we should stick to full names for now."

Valgaav led the way to the changing room, where they all slipped into coveralls, grabbed masks and gloves. "Let's check the incoming list. We may not have work tonight."

"That doesn't happen very often, but we always hope," Xelloss said. "Oh, here's a pen for taking notes, but be careful not to put it in your mouth."

Zelgadiss took the offered pen and notepad, "I wouldn't do that."

"You'd be surprised how many people must. About 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens each year," Xelloss remarked with a smile.

Zelgadiss winced, thinking, "So Valgaav is the straight man and Xel is the comedian. Where do I fit in?"

His ponderings were cut short when he got a good look of the main embalming and autopsy 'suite'- dry and well lit! Autopsy tables, some with built-in plumbing: irrigation hoses, suction tubes and drains lined up in the center of the room. They were overhung by lights just like those used in operating rooms to help see into dark body cavities. Also in the room was a lightbox for viewing X-rays, a scale for weighing organs, and a camera stand so interesting findings could be photographed.

Xelloss and Valgaav were flipping through a clipboard of papers, looking for their evening's schedule and instructions left over from the day crew. While they were so occupied, Zelgadiss examined the autopsy tables. They were waist-high aluminum fixtures- basically a slanted tray (for drainage) with raised edges to keep blood and fluids from flowing onto the floor- plumbed for running water and had several faucets and spigots to facilitate washing away all the blood released during the procedure. Like some older facility out of a horror movie, the room still had two marble tables for the drier embalming steps.

"We are in luck!" Xelloss cried out.

"No work?" Zelgadiss asked.

"No autopsies. Mostly, those are done during the day by a medical student from the university, but when things get busy, we get the overflow."

"Does that happen often?" Zel asked hoping it didn't.

"Most times," Valgaav answered. "Tonight we do embalming on a body delivered by the hospital. Says here the autopsy was already done."

"The hospital does them too?"

"Rarely. We're here on the edge of town and mostly it's done here. Special cases involving the police end up there. Light night, then." Valgaav left Xelloss to put away the work orders. "Bodies for post mortem examination or embalming are kept in the refrigerated storage room, the 'cadaver keep'. This way."

Zelgadiss shuddered and steeled himself for the job, whatever it might entail. He followed the other two workers to the 'cadaver keep' and peeked in as Valgaav opened the sealed door. He could feel a rush of frigid air and noticed a couple gurneys, one holding a sheet-covered body, and a wall of locked steel-plated doors.

"Those are for provisional cases. You know, suspected murders with possible evidence or contagious diseases," Valgaav told him, "We call it 'purgatory,'" meaning the steel lockers.

Valgaav entered the cold-storage room, and then returned wheeling out the shrouded body on the gurney. "Bathroom's over there," he indicated to Zel with a tilt of his head.

"I don't need..." Zel began, but then Valgaav pulled off the sheet and revealed the autopsied body underneath. "Shit..." he muttered. He flew to the bathroom to lose his dinner.

After all the post mortem procedures had been performed, the body had been left an empty shell, with no larynx, chest organs, abdominal organs, pelvic organs, or brain. The front of the rib cage was missing. The scalp was pulled down over the face, and the whole top of the head was gone. The organs had been disposed of at the hospital. Obviously, not optimal for lying in state in public view, or for Zelgadiss' unprepared brain.

"Odd, usually men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed. It's the women who somehow deteriorate during the night," Xelloss quipped as he looked at the body. "Time to put on the gloves (typically two pairs) and masks."

End Graveyard Shift, CHAPTER TWO


	3. Informative

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER THREE –Informative–**

"Whether you are planning ahead or have experienced a loss, our Funeral Directors and Staff are prepared to help you with any questions you may have."

* * *

"You all right?" Xelloss asked Zelgadiss during his first embalming session. 

"Yeah, I'll be fine. It was just that first...it was unexpected. I'd never seen a dead body before," Zel explained.

"You'll get used to it," Valgaav noted, "or not."

"What's next?" Zel worked to control the tremor in his voice.

"What we do the most, embalming." Xelloss opened a manual and pointed to the title page: "'Embalming forms the foundation for the entire funeral-service structure. It is the basis for the sale of profitable merchandise, the guardian of public health, the reason for much of our professional education and our protective legislation.' -from an old embalming text."

"We only do the prep stages and the funeral director, Mr. Vurumagen, does the cosmetics in the morning," Valgaav clarified. "That or his assistant, Ms. Eris."

Zel knew her, Eris. His grandfather was dating her, although the old man treated it as more of a 'backstairs' affair. It must have been Eris who had gotten him the job. He nodded.

"Vurumagen doesn't trust us," Xel grinned. "Thinks we'd shave off the eyebrows or paint on moustaches."

That made Zelgadiss smile faintly.

"It takes training to do it right," Valgaav admitted. "What we gotta do now that we've stuffed it and stitched it up is to pump embalming fluid into the main artery. It'll take awhile so in the meantime, Zelgadiss, you can take the body's inventory list and cross-check that with the personal stuff sent over from the hospital."

Zelgadiss, happy to be anywhere else, took the clipboard and located the box stacked among others with the matching ID label. Inside the box was a suit, white shirt, tie, jewelry (rings: paired, one with a plain band; and glasses). So the man had been married. Zel wondered about the family he'd left behind, but not for long.

"When you're done, we need a hand here," Valgaav shouted.

Zel quickly verified that everything that was listed was in the box, closed the lid securely, and hurried back to the table. "It's okay. Nothing's lost."

"Great," Valgaav said.

Zel tried to ignore the faintly pink fluid being pumped into an artery. He noticed both of the other men were wearing their face masks. "Should I put mine on too?

"Yeah, you should always use a face mask and ensure that the embalming room is sanitized and ventilated. These chemicals are dangerous so don't breathe them, spill them, or get them in your eyes," Valgaav warned him.

"We'll be done in a minute, then we have some cleaning up to do. Find the germicidal solution," Xelloss said then directed Zelgadiss where to find it on the shelf. "The recommended sequence calls for a thorough disinfection and body cleansing with a germicide-insecticide-olfactant. It's a safety precaution against most diseases and keeps the stink of decay down," Xel said with a smile meant to put Zelgadiss at ease, but didn't.

Embalming, Zelgadiss was discovering, was a smelly business. "Is there a fan I can turn up?"

Valgaav told him where to find the ventilation switch and how to adjust it. "We must be getting nose burn out," he said. "If you think it's too strong, rev it up."

Zel nodded and rushed off to crank up the fan. When he got back, Xelloss was ready to have him assist in the cleaning. Valgaav concentrated on the fingernails, while Xel washed the man's face and hair. Xel demonstrated the proper hair care for Zelgadiss to take over, and then moved on to snipping nose hairs.

"Hairdressing is normally done after embalming is done," he told Zelgadiss. "You're doing fine, by the way."

"Thanks," Zelgadiss muttered.

"He doesn't need a shave, I don't think," Xel mused as he examined the final results. "Japanese?"

"Could be," Valgaav pointed to the body's chart and said to Zelgadiss, "Turn to the last page. What's the guy's name?"

Zelgadiss let out a gasp of surprise, "**_Tadaaki._**" That was the man Sylphiel was talking about. The man she was seeing and just died. Gourry was just telling them about that. Mr. Tadaaki, mister 'faithful and bright' had been a married man and had over-done life, killing himself to be youthful again. Not too bright and not at all faithful, apparently.

"See whaddaya know, Japanese. Can I call them, or not?" Xel smiled triumphantly. "Whoa, what's the matter? You know this guy?"

"No," Zelgadiss shook his head. "But friends of mine did."

"Are we done then?" Valgaav called out from the sink where he was washing his hands. "We don't have anything else tonight so we can pack him back into the cooler and swab the decks, then go home early."

Zel looked up at the clock. _Where had the time gone?_ He yawned.

Valgaav made room for Zelgadiss. "You look like you're about to drop."

"I'm not usually up all night, working anyway," he added with a smirk.

"Oooooh, party guy, huh?" Xel punched him in the shoulder. "Hey, we're having a party this weekend. You gotta come."

Zelgadiss smiled to himself. He thought Valgaav and Xelloss were pretty cool. Older guys that treated him like an equal. "Sure, I don't have anything going on. Can I bring someone?"

"As long at it's a girl," Xel looked at him seriously, then broke into a smile, "That was a joke. You can invite anyone. We met some girls the other day and they're bringing friends. We know a few people around, but not many."

"So you guys are new to...this too?"

"The work? No. We've been at it, training like you during the school breaks for years. Family businesses suck you up that way." Valgaav untied the black headband holding back his hair, letting a long straight fall of green hair move freely past his shoulders. "We've been at college in Atlas City."

"So you are family? Both of you?"

Xel nodded, "I'm his cousin. His father is my mother's brother. She runs a funeral business out of Wolfpack Island. Don't tell me you're related, too!"

Zelgadiss nodded, "My grandfather said so, but I don't know the details of the family tree."

"My dad's the owner," Valgaav said. "Gaav Rubyeye. Welcome to the graveyard shift, cousin."

"Right," Zelgadiss smiled shyly and followed them out the door.

"Where's your car?" Xelloss asked casually as they strolled into the parking lot.

Oh... Zelgadiss had forgotten his lack of transportation. His face must have said it all. "My bike was stolen the other day."

"Wanna ride with us? If you don't live too far we can give you a lift to and from," Valgaav offered.

"Thanks, I'd like that." When he saw the car Xelloss was unlocking, it took his breath away. "Nice..."

"Yeah, mom bought a new one and I got her cast off," Xelloss' cool smile turned into a goofy grin. "Poor me."

Zelgadiss climbed into the back seat of the four-year-old BMW and closed his eyes. The faint smell of leather was discernable over the chemical smells still present in his hair. The heavy beat of rock music filled the car.

He woke up in a totally unfamiliar place. He shot up from a couch, spilling a blanket off onto the floor, and checked his watch: 2:30 PM. _What!_ His next sense to kick in was that of smell; coffee was brewing close by. Then, he was keenly aware of not having eaten in several hours. He turned at the sound of footfalls coming from a linoleum floor to a carpeted one.

"Hey," Xelloss greeted him. "Remember me?"

"Xel." Zelgadiss collapsed back onto the couch. "Am I at your house?"

"Yep. Valgaav and his dad's, to be precise, but I have a room. We didn't feel like trying to get you home last night." He drew close to Zelgadiss and said in a spooky, low voice, "It would have been like waking the dead." He drew back smiling, "You were wasted so we carried you in. Want some coffee?"

"Yes, thanks." Zel felt supremely embarrassed. He had just met his coworkers and now they must think he was a real light-weight, a kid.

"Valgaav looked up your grandfather's number and called him. Left a message telling him you were here. **Here**," he repeated the word loudly and passed Zelgadiss a mug of coffee. "Black okay?"

"Yes...thanks...for everything."

"Forget it," Xelloss chuckled, ruffling the guy's hair. "Ugh, you'll want to shower after every night at work or that smell will stick around forever. In fact, you can use the one down the hall, dry towels are in the cabinet under the sink; you'll see them. I'll fix you a sandwich. You can eat when you get out, and then you can help me shop for party food, okay?"

Zelgadiss sat, transfixed by the energetic enigma called Xelloss. _Shower...wake up...eat... _"Okay," he muttered and dragged himself in the direction of the bathroom.

Later...

"Hi, Filia? Zelgadiss. Yeah, say... I met some guys at work. Yeah, real cool. They're having a party this weekend and I wondered... You are?" the disappointment oozed from his voice.

"Yeah. Oh, Zelly, I promised Lina to go to some party at the home of these horrible guys and she was supposed to invite you. Where have you been?"

"Work and not at home. No, I haven't a cell phone. My last one was stolen from my locker. That's okay, if you'd rather go to that party, I understand." Although, Zelgadiss understood not a bit.

"Actually," she paused a moment to consider her choices. "I'd rather go with you. Yeah, I'll do that. I'll tell Lina we'll stop by her party later, if we want to, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Zelgadiss was pleased. He was going to a party with the most beautiful girl he knew. That would impress his new colleagues! "Oh, and how would you like to join our bowling team? We play Sunday afternoons."

"I don't know. I'll think about that. I'm a pretty busy person."

They said their goodbyes and hung up.

"Gotta date?" Xelloss asked.

"Yeah, she's coming. So, you want me to help shop? Can we stop at my house first so I can change clothes?"

"Okay, although, you look about my size, you can wear something of mine..."

"Thanks, man, but you've done so much already. I think I'd better go home first. We have time, right?"

"Yes, we do," Xelloss smiled sedately and grabbed his keys of the counter. "Shall we?"

Zelgadiss hadn't given his location much of a thought. It wasn't until he stepped outside that he thought he ought to know the address, just so he could find his way back. What he discovered as he twisted his head back caused him to stumble and nearly fall. _The house-that place where the druggies hung out! _He stood frozen in place comically aghast with his eyes wide, mouth agape.

"You okay?" Xelloss asked. He was able to steady the other guy with a quick grab of his shoulder.

"Ah, sure. It's just that," he looked Xelloss dead-on in the eye, "this house has been a problem for the neighborhood for years. Police cars had reserved parking spaces out front on Friday and Saturday nights."

"Really?" Xelloss smiled and chuckled. "Valgaav's got several older brothers. The last moved out just before I moved in. From the looks of the house, I believe you. Valgaav and I have been cleaning up the mess as we go, not that we're especially clean, but..."

"Understood," Zel returned a shy smile and followed Xelloss to his car. "So where's Valgaav this afternoon?"

"Climbing."

"Climbing, what?"

"Walls," Xelloss smiled and started the car. "Indoor rock climbing."

* * *

Zelgadiss needed a car. He wanted to take Filia to the party driving a car, not being driven by her like a little kid. Eris was visiting his grandfather, a common occurrence, and she drove an okay little car. Good enough. She had even told Zelgadiss on numerous occasions that he could borrow it. So, when considered in that light it wasn't exactly stealing, was it? He would have asked her, but the two of them were indisposed, behind a locked bedroom door. What could he do?

_Leave a note. _Zelgadiss scratched out a short explanatory note: "Eris, taking car to party at Valgaav and Xelloss'," and hoped that would save his neck. He didn't have a phone number to leave, but since she worked at the same place as the other two guys, hopefully she would know how to contact him– and hopefully she wouldn't. Besides, he'd probably have the car back before she even saw the note.

Hot keys in hand, Zelgadiss sped to the door, pausing long enough at the hall mirror to check his hair. _Looking good_.

* * *

"Uh, Gourry? Why are we going this way?"

"Zangalus lives over here." He gave her a quick smile and turned his attention back to the road.

"Okay. So what? Lots of folks live over here, but not Xelloss and Valgaav, which was my point 'cause that's where we're going, if you recall."

"Oh, yeah. I know. We're giving Zangalus and Martina a ride to the party."

"We are? Why's that? Can't we just go and get there early and check out the spread just to be sure that Xelloss character got everything right?"

"Oh, don't worry. He'll get it all right," Gourry chanced a brief look her way, then back to the road ahead.

"What do you mean by that?"

Gourry meant a lot, but he didn't want to lay it out in front of Lina. If she couldn't tell that guy liked her, well then, good. He changed subjects. "See, I owe Zangalus for covering for me at work the other day. Ya know, when we went out. And, well, his car's in the shop so I said I'd drive. Martina lives next door so–"

"I know where Martina lives," Lina said irritably. Gourry was such a good-hearted and virtuous man. He was doing the right thing and yet it wasn't for her, and that made her feel peevish, selfish, and petulant as a result. "Fine. I'm staying in the car, though."

"Okay. I won't be a minute, Lina," he said, blissfully unaware of how close he'd come to having Lina take out her anger on him, and loped up to the other man's house.

* * *

They could hear the music emanating from the house as the two girls marched up the narrow walk. Amelia and Sylphiel chattered together excitedly.

"It's my first party with older men," Amelia snickered with nervousness. "Do I look okay?"

"Uh-huh! You look really cute," Sylphiel smiled sweetly back at her younger friend. "So are they creepy or nice?" Everyone had met the new guys but her. She was always the one being left out, she thought, but was happy to have been invited to the party. Ever since her break up with Gourry, she had had a hard time meeting the right guy. No one could compare with him, and it didn't help that she was still in love with him while he had clearly moved on to Lina. And then after her first date with a new man, that guy up and died!

"Thanks, I-I hope so. Mr. Valgaav has these really gorgeous golden eyes." Amelia might have said more, but the door opened.

"Hi!"

"Hi, Mr. Xelloss! We're the first, aren't we?" Amelia asked.

"Yes, but on time is fine," he pushed his bangs out of his eyes and got a better look at the girl with Amelia. "Helloooo, beautiful."

Sylphiel felt the blood rush to her face.

"How rude of me," Amelia cut in. "Miss Sylphiel, this is Mr. Xelloss, Mr. Valgaav's cousin. Mr. Xelloss, this is Miss Sylphiel who is a priestess at the shrine with me and works at the same athletic place as Mr. Gourry. Mr. Xelloss and Mr. Valgaav are actors!"

"Sylphiel, a pretty name to go with your pretty green eyes," he grinned and stepped aside for them to enter. "I hope we can become good friends, too."

"Y-Yes," she whispered, tongue-tied. He was flirting, and as much as she liked it she forgot what to say.

"Oh VAAAAAAAAAAL-GAAAAAAAAV! Come out and greet your guests!" he hollered. "Go on in, ladies." Xelloss shooed them on. He could see another car pulling up.

Valgaav ambled into the front room, unfolded his arms and nodded at the newcomers, "Yo."

"Hi, Mr. Valgaav! This is Miss Sylphiel and you remember me, Amelia!"

Her eyes were shining with such intensity and excitement, he broke into a rare smile, "Yeah, I remember you. So, ah, come over here and pick out some CDs you like. We can get the music started."

"Oh, what a big collection you have!" Amelia squealed as she knelt by his knees to peruse the wall-to-wall CD rack.

When he knelt alongside her, his lanky arm brushing past her face to pull out a CD, she nearly fell over. Instead, she grabbed at the arm to steady herself.

"Sorry," they said together, then looked away and chuckled.

His arm tingled where her tiny hand had clutched him and he wondered at that.

But it wasn't Lina, as Xelloss expected, who stepped out of the car. It was that blond with the attitude who had been so anxious to leave when Lina and Amelia called to sell cookies. But who had she come with that could have talked her into coming back?

"Zelgadiss? Oh my..." Xelloss shook his head and muttered to himself. "She is not the girl for you, my friend."

"I can't believe _it_. This is _that_ house! That place with the perverts I was telling you about. Lina's got some party thing going on here. Zelgadiss, you mean you actually WORK with these guys? You're an actor too?"

Zelgadiss blanched at the thought, "Er...no. I'm more a technical person." Xelloss had mentioned their job cover-up while shopping for the party. Zel had forgotten until this moment that he too would be part of the subterfuge.

He stopped at the front steps and greeted Xelloss, "Hey."

"Hello, Zelgadiss. What a pleasant surprise, you again!" He smiled soullessly in Filia's direction.

"Yeah, right."

"Xelloss, this is Filia," Zelgadiss said hoping not to get turned away.

"Filia, a lovely name to go with the face."

"Oh stuff it, Xelloss. You are not as charming as you think you are. We're only here for awhile to say hi and then go," Filia snapped and met Zelgadiss' eyes. "Right?"

"Let's see how it goes," Zelgadiss sighed. He wasn't a complete pushover. Close, but he had enough ego to stand up for himself.

"That's the spirit!" Xelloss laughed. He opened the door wide, hiding behind it to allow the two to pass without encountering him. Before he could close the door, however, his attention was riveted by a flash of red curls between several other figures coming up his walk. "Lina."

Lina grinned and waved, "Hey, Xelloss!"

He couldn't help but return her enthusiasm, "Hello, Lina, everyone!"

"Everyone here already?" she asked. "Oh, this is Gourry, who you've met already but I wasn't sure if you got his name. Ah, this is Xelloss, by the way. Oh, and these two are friends, kinda, Martina and Zangalus. He and Gourry work at the same place." She turned away from Xelloss and said to the others, "This guy's an actor or something so if you wanna plug that awful script you've been writing for the last ten years, now's your chance."

The girl Lina introduced as Martina, flushed beet red, but controlled her temper, barely, "I-It's not much but it's really good. I'm certain you're cultured enough to appreciate the finer things in life."

Xelloss staggered under the weight of the tome she thrust at him, "Oh, yes. I, um, must find a place to put this. Make yourselves at home, in the meantime."

Lina was already elbowing Martina out of her way.

"Oh, Lina, just a minute."

"Huh? What?"

"How many people did you actually invite?" Xelloss asked in a low voice.

She rattled of a list, and then asked, "Are they all here yet?"

"Well, yes, but," he paused to readjust the stack of leaning papers in his arms. "You told me to get enough food for twenty, and there's half that many. That's a lot of food going to go to waste."

"Ha! You don't know this bunch and me in particular. I said 20 so you'd get enough. Don't worry 'bout leftovers!" she laughed and made a beeline to the kitchen. "Let's see just how good you did."

"Lina's here!" several voices shouted in concert. "Now the party can start!"

Happy faces, music, summertime, no work, time to play, exciting new people, and romance was in the air– everyone was contributing to the good time. After awhile, they were all sitting and eating on the floor of the living room after running around and dancing. The conversation was in danger of dying from neglect, when Valgaav reached over and turned down the music.

"Tell 'em a story, Xel," Valgaav urged him to get started.

Xelloss shrugged his shoulders, then stood and began to pace a few seconds with a finger to his temple, thinking before beginning, "Well, okay... Traveling back to England's past, around 1500, when folks with money had dinner plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content would cause some of the lead in the pewter to leak into the food causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous."

"Oh, that's why!" Amelia said excitedly. "That's so neat!"

"I think _he's_ full of lead," Filia said. "And it's gone to his head. There are lots of plants in the tomato family that ARE poisonous, that's what gave them all a bad reputation."

"Maybe so, but that doesn't make my story untrue," Xelloss argued.

"Well I don't believe it!" she snapped.

"The poison in lead wasn't understood at the time, Fi-lee-a," he argued back. "In fact... Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the drinkers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days, and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up; hence the custom of "holding a wake".

"What!" she cried out. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Okay..." Xelloss pushed a very fat tabby cat off his chest where it had been snoozing. He sat up, laced his fingers behind his back, and paced, looking thoughtful. "England was old and small, still is, but back in the late 1500's when the local folks started running out of places to bury people, they would dig up coffins and take the bones to a bone-house in order to reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside. They realized that they had been burying people alive, a practice commonly frowned upon. Probably a few of those who didn't get a wake performed, don't you think so...Filia?"

She didn't answer, so he continued, "To prevent this from happening, then, they thought they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it up through the coffin, up through the ground, and tie it to an above-ground bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night on the 'graveyard shift' and listen for the bell; thus, someone could be 'saved by the bell' or was considered a 'dead ringer'."

"Oh, for gods'sakes..." Filia groused.

"You sure know some creepy stuff, Xelloss," Lina noted.

Zelgadiss sighed as the cat skirted his chair avoiding his extended hand to greet Lina instead. "Why did she do that? I like cats."

Lina scratched the cat behind the ears and was rewarded with a lap full of cat, "Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking, men kick cats. And cats know it!"

"Tell us another story, Xel," Amelia asked politely.

"Oh yes do...and stink up the place," Filia grumbled.

"Why thank you for the brain-nudge," his smile turning more smirk-like, "I know one more factoid from 1500 England. Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, if they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor."

"That _reeks_ of idiocy," Filia said. "I don't believe a word of it."

"I might argue with you, but I won't. A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a _new _argument," he smiled and inched his way toward the kitchen. "Anyone want something while I'm up?"

Zelgadiss thought Xelloss was right and funny, so he chuckled, which nettled Filia especially when Gourry leaned over while carefully balancing a plateful of food and said, "He's a pretty nice guy. Funny, too, but I don't think he and your girlfriend get along very well."

"No, it doesn't look that way," Zelgadiss sighed in agreement, although he was pleased with the sound of 'girlfriend' when Gourry said it. Too bad.

"Yeah, get me...some of everything," Lina answered Xelloss, and he did.

Sylphiel was commenting to Xelloss as she accompanied him into the kitchen where a large buffet was spread on the table, "It's amazing how much Lina can eat, don't you think? I mean, that will be her third plateful!"

"Fourth," Xelloss corrected her with a smile. "She must burn it up. Lina looks slender."

"I know. It isn't fair. I just keep dieting and dieting just to stay the same size."

Xelloss paused in his 'plating' of food to step back and admire the attractive girl. He reached out with a free hand and encircled her forearm with his fingers. "I think you are dieting too much. You're plenty slim. More exercise and you'll build up muscle and burn calories and not have to deny yourself the pleasure of eating." He reached up and touched her hair lightly. "Beautiful. You take very good care of your hair, I can feel it. Don't forget to eat food with some oil and fat to keep it healthy. Here, I recommend the fruit salad with the cream topping."

Sylphiel did know that he was right, but had been so infected by the dieting craze that she had come close to neglecting her own health. Her eyes widened in wonder, "Are you a doctor? You know so much from just...a touch."

Xelloss was uncertain how to answer her. The two of them were still alone in the kitchen and he had to think fast. Valgaav, Zelgadiss and Xelloss had all agreed not to reveal their workplace and unusual employment; it was way too soon. Not many people, and in particular younger ones, would find mortuary work to be interesting, maybe they'd even find it repellant, and these were new friendships they were trying to build. The guys wanted to impress the girls, but they had agreed that 'messing with corpses prior to burial' would not do the trick, so Valgaav had come up with the 'filming' idea. Now they were stuck with that 'white lie' to explain their jobs, Zelgadiss included.

"No, we're in the film industry, although we do see a lot of poor-nutrition cases ...starving actresses. Oh, you should try this cheese with the chopped figs. Here, I'll scoop some on a sesame cracker for you."

Xelloss made the mistake of looking into her eyes. Sylphiel sniffed and grew teary eyed, then sobbed, "You're so nice and smart."

"Is something the matter?"

"Well... my boyfriend just died. Not boyfriend, really; we had just started to date, but he was so...so..." she sniffled some more.

Xelloss ripped off a paper towel and handed it over. "Here you go."

"Y-your hair reminded me of his. Long and dark, not purplish hair, but thick and straight. Are you part Japanese?"

"Me? Ah... I don't think so, but I never saw my father."

He didn't want her to fall in love with him, but nearly everyone did so he was familiar with the signs. Not Lina, though. Of course, it was early in the game and he hadn't applied his 'mojo' to her yet. Guys fell for him, too. At first he was afraid that the new guy at work, Zelgadiss, might. He was a great looking guy, but Xelloss was relieved when he asked to bring a girl to the party. No, he liked Sylphiel well enough, but it was Lina he had decided to target– for tonight, anyway. Not that he had made much headway. So far he had mostly jousted with that Filia siren.

To distract Sylphiel, then, he wanted to startle her by saying, "I'll give you a diet tip, okay? You can lose weight quickly by eating raw pork or rancid tuna. The subsequent food poisoning/diarrhea will enable you to lose 12 pounds in only 2 days."

She, however, was not repulsed. Indeed, she was thankful for the advice! She attached herself to his free arm and gushed, "Really? Wow, that is so cool! I'll have to try that."

"Oh?" his face fell.

"So what's holding things up in here?" Lina said in a raised voice as she entered the kitchen. "I got tired of waiting for you."

Xelloss discreetly shook off the other girl and handed over the plate he'd prepared for Lina, "Here you go, Lina."

"Xelloss was giving me heath tips. Did you know that you can lose over 10 pounds by eating..."

Both Xelloss and Lina tried to cut her off, but for different reasons. Xelloss didn't want Lina to hear what he'd told her and Lina didn't want to hear 'diet' talk. Didn't work.

"...but I'd have to eat, what did you say, Xel? Raw pork and bad tuna? Something like that."

Sylphiel looked so proud, while Lina turned a little green. "Uh..." She stared at her plate of food, then up at Xelloss.

"Oh, no!" He shook his head and waved his hands. "Nothing like that in this food. Everything's... wholesome. Guaranteed!"

"Uh, huh," Lina nodded.

He cast about for something to say to change the topic and found, "Have you ever wondered if the light really goes off inside when the refrigerator door is closed?"

"Yeah... Does it?" asked Sylphiel.

"The what?" Lina scratched her head mystified momentarily at the weirdness of it all. "No, it should shut off 'cause the of the way the switch works."

"Let's find out!" he popped up and opened a drawer. "All I need is the drill. Where do you think Valgaav would keep a drill?"

"A drill, Xel?" Lina looked at him askance.

"Yeah, I need to drill a hole in the refrigerator door. This will allow us to check that the light goes off when the door is closed. How else?" A smile grew over his face as he watched Lina's expression change.

"Ah, geez," she started to laugh. "Oh, and about that 5 dollars..."

"Ten, but don't give it another thought. Consider it your contribution to the party, okay?" Xelloss smiled. He liked Lina's gumption.

"Sure, if you want it that way, then yeah."

"I want it that way. Oh, and as a special favor to me, don't tell Valgaav. Let's just keep it all a secret, okay?" So far Valgaav hadn't reminded Xelloss of their bet, and Xelloss had lost because Lina had not showed up at his house with the money she owed, as promised.

"Sure, okay."

"I'd also like to show you something...in another room."

Lina, curious by nature, agreed, "Sure, as long as I can come back for more food later."

End Graveyard Shift, CHAPTER THREE


	4. Dignity and Care

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER FOUR **– Dignity and Care –

"Helping families depends on a high level of dignity and care for your deceased loved one."

* * *

Xelloss, pleased that Lina agreed to a few minutes alone with him, let his mind go wild exploring the possibilities for them, which would explain why he didn't notice the mountain of firm flesh that had entered the kitchen until he plowed into it, or _him _as it turned out..

"Hey!" Gourry laughed. "There you are! I was wondering what was keeping you so long. You know, this drink is good. Listen to all it has in it: ginkgo, ginseng, and guw...ara...na..."

"You mean guar-a-na? That's a natural source of caffeine," Lina said.

"Yeah," Gourry smiled down at her. "With all that stuff in me, I oughtta feel great! Maybe we should get this at the club? Whaddya think, Lina?"

"Fine with me," she said.

Xelloss was about to beckon Lina onwards, when his name was screeched from the front room. "Xelloss!"

"What?" he bit off peevishly. As host, his duty was to keep the party rolling before engaging in his own activities, but was leaving Lina with Mr. Tall-Blonde-Hunk a wise decision? Well, it just wasn't going to be his night, he feared. "Just a minute, Lina. Don't run off."

It turned out that Martina was upset that Xelloss would use her scrip as a side table. He was forced to sit by her side and console her, which gave him the opportunity to get to know Martina; a grueling and uninteresting venture.

Amelia and Valgaav had ensconced themselves near the CD player where they took command of the song order. They discovered a common interest in music and indulged themselves as they sought out conversation topics.

"You have a distinctive voice, Mr. Valgaav. I'm sure there are oodles of parts needing a guy like you. My daddy has connections in network media and the movie industry. What film company do you usually work for?"

"Oh, ah... independents mostly. You've never heard of any of them," he answered. He hated having to continue lying to this nice girl. He could see the similarities between Amelia and Nahga, and there weren't many-like the hair, eyes, and complexion. Oh, and the figure. Amelia looked to be developing along the lines of her sister, but in a less overtly sexual way, and that made her strangely compelling to him.

Zelgadiss was dancing with Filia and feeling that life was good. Amelia had found someone to entertain her so he didn't feel guilty about neglecting her. He had the hottest girl in the room a fingertip's-length away.

"Umm, I love your hair," Filia said. She rubbed up against his chest as she stroked and caressed a heavy handful of his dark locks. "Never cut it, okay? Promise me that?"

Deciding to grow out his hair past his shoulders had been an epiphany of sorts: "Grow it long and girls will flock."

"For now," he smiled. In a daring move, he turned and bent toward her face, secured her with a firm grip to her bare, strapless shoulder, and kissed her in a sudden lurch.

His overtly aggressive action was unexpected and caught her unprepared, but Filia didn't pull away. She recognized tons of potential in this guy. Good-looking, well-off, college-bound, and flexible to her will. She'd have to give a little to get a lot, but it would be a worthwhile investment. She returned the kiss, winding her hand into his hair and holding him, and then deepened it significantly. _I'm interested_.

From that point on, Zelgadiss was unaware of the rest of the party happening around him.

Immersed in his own inner ruminations on Amelia's better features distracted Valgaav from attending to the object of his musing. He had neglected to follow Amelia's affirmative speech, which was directed in his best interests, until he noticed that she was staring at him, anticipating some meaty reply. He just plunged in and asked, "What's that again?"

"I said," she blurted out enthusiastically, "Talent like yours should not be wasted. I vow to find you the very best roles!"

"Oh, that's not really necessary," he began, and then lost contact with his vocal cords when she leveled her big blue eyes at him.

"Of course it is. I believe in you, Mr. Valgaav."

And for a second, Valgaav felt like 'the man', and then he felt like a deceitful schmuck. He felt even worse when he heard a bewildering wail from the beyond.

"Ohhh! How could you disrespect my work like that? I poured my soul...hear that? My soooul into that script and there it is, suffering in disgrace as an end table!" Martina had consumed a couple glasses of wine and wasn't used to it. She yanked at her mousey blonde hair, bringing tears to her eyes. She was going down hard.

Xelloss was sitting head in hand, unable to console Martina while her boyfriend was partying elsewhere and simultaneously trying to keep Lina in his line of sight. His cousin Valgaav, he couldn't help but notice, seemed to be enjoying himself, as was Zelgadiss. Xel sighed, feeling rather the martyr as he suffered Martina's rants rather than rudely ignore her. He sighed again, and again. What he wouldn't give to be standing over there beside Lina or making out on the couch with Lina or in the bedroom making love to Lina. His ever-present smile grew from wistful to dangerous as his eyes opened to follow Lina's movements more closely.

In fact, Lina was deep in a discussion with Martina's said boyfriend, Zangalus, and Gourry, mostly arguing over whether a sword should have a name or not.

Lina said, "Hell, no. Who'd wanna do a dumb thing like that?"

Gourry was equivocal, "Some do, some don't. It's gotta be a special sword and the name cool and evocative of its uniqueness, but then that one of yours don't deserve nothing like that."

Lina was staring at her tall, blonde boy-space-friend wondering when his vocabulary had grown to include so many multi-syllable words. "This is making me thirsty."

Xelloss was longing to join Lina, even if that meant entering into an ineffectual argument, but Martina was practically orgasmic in her passion for her 'script'. She had him pinned to the floor, sitting in his lap and taking turns petting his hair and his 'end table'. But then Lina was leaving his field of vision, and he had to crane his neck to see her leave the room. "Where was she off to?" he wondered aloud.

He desperately wanted to get up and find out where she had gone. Xelloss tried to be reasonable with Martina, "First of all, isn't that your glass leaving a ring on the top paper? I simply put the...um...document where there was room. I think you've jumped to conclusions."

"Oh? Well. Um," she said, and then she started to cry.

"Now, now," he sighed in exasperation and cast about for a salvage team. Everyone seemed to be ignoring him and his plight. He patted Martina's back and hoped she'd run out of steam, but she didn't. She appeared to have reserves, no _reservoirs_ of the stuff remaining. Xelloss hung tough, but eventually he cracked, "Okay, listen, I'll read it. I'll read the whole damn thing this weekend, but only if you'll let me get up."

Valgaav recognized misery when he saw it and as much as he thought Xel deserved a portion of it for initiating their false-job story, he recognized that it had been his fault for devising the lie. There was no reason his cousin should have to suffer unduly, as much as he secretly enjoyed watching the other man squirm.

"Amelia, can you excuse me justa min? I need to extricate Xel from your friend over there."

Valgaav knelt beside Xelloss/Martina. He gave Xel a wink and said to Martina, "Hey, you the talented writer? Wanna tell me about the...plot?"

She glommed onto his arm and allowed herself to be lifted to her feet. Her eyes were glassy and glued to his. "You're...you're...?"

"Valgaav."

"You are strong. What arm muscles you have!"

"I climb. Mountains, walls. I do caves too. Spelunking."

"Really?" She had no idea what he was talking about, but she was fascinated. "Wow, your hair's so cool. Who does your hair? I mean, if I wanted to go green, I'd want it like yours. Are those tattoos on your face?" She leaned it and scrutinized his face closely. "Is that eye make-up you're wearing? You actor types are sure weird that way."

Valgaav sighed, not knowing which question to answer. Yes, he lined his eyes in kohl and smudged it slightly at the corners. Ancient Egyptian was the current Atlas City fashion, as were the facial stripes, also done in makeup, but, it wasn't the girl's business. Being an introvert ordinarily, Valgaav was not forthcoming with the details she was looking for. "Yeah, it's an actor's thing."

"Oh...You're moving too fast. The room's starting to spin." Martina stumbled and grabbed his arm for support.

_Great. _Valgaav wondered where she'd found the booze she must have drunk and why no one was taking care of her. "Where is that dude you came in with? He your boyfriend?"

Martina slowly turned her head, scanning the room. "Over there. There he is. Zangalus."

While Valgaav had been playing the good host, Zangalus and Gourry's argument had escalated. They had moved from sword-naming to name-calling and Lina was nowhere to be found to referee.

"Probably back in the kitchen," Valgaav muttered as he walked Martina into the fray, with the plan to stave off an actual scrimmage. He had grown up in a household of fighters and could hold his own, but he didn't want that tonight; no, not tonight. Not with Amelia present. Not on his watch.

"I can call _anything _what_ever_ and _however _I damned well please!" Zangalus shot back at Gourry.

"Hey, dude," Valgaav got in Zangalus' face. "Yer girl needs to go home. She's not feeling too sharp."

Lina had chosen to reappear, soda in hand, to put in her opinion. "Stop the howling, Zangalus!"

And then Gourry's face lit up, and forgetting how adamantly Lina had been arguing against it, he suggested a name, "That's it! You can call it the 'Howling Sword'!"

Zangalus looked away from Valgaav, "What's that? Howling...? Yeah, that's a damned righteous name, dude. Yeah." He slapped Gourry on the back. "Cool. Say, I needta get Martina home. You ready to go pretty soon?"

"I don't know," Gourry looked askance at Lina to get her approval first.

"Might as well," she shrugged. "Food's gone for the most part."

Xelloss, now free to roam at will in his house, was on Lina like a starving mosquito on a young, healthy calf. "What's that you say? All that food is g-gone?"

Lina nodded his way smugly, "Yep. Go see for yourself. I told you!"

Xelloss did, and found that the entire spread was gone, as if by magic. He encountered Sylphiel in the kitchen washing out the last of the serving dishes. "Hi!"

"Hello, Sylphiel. Oh, thanks for all that, but there's no need for you to be doing dishes. You're the guest."

"I know, but I wanted to put back a few of the best things for you to eat later, before," and here she demurred and blushed slightly, "everything was gone."

She opened the refrigerator and proudly displayed several small servings of various prepared foods wrapped in neat packages and stacked squarely to the back. If she was trying to impress him with her housekeeping skills, it was working.

"Oh my..." he smiled. "Lovely."

This quiet and warm interlude was disrupted by an intrusive voice.

"You! You serve alcohol at a party with underage minors present. What kind of a _monster_ are you?"

"Filia," he practically growled. The happy vision of his wringing her neck was the only thing helping him keep his composure. "I did not serve any minors alcohol. There are no minors here, for one, and I didn't serve drinks. What's in the refrigerator's there for the taking, most of it mine, Valgaav's, or his father's. It may contain alcohol, but we are big boys."

"No minors? What's Amelia, a _pig_?" Filia's eyebrow began to twitch.

"Pig?" Xelloss pondered that comparison "No," he decided. She was not a pig in any way. A puppy, maybe. Yes, she was certainly the type that fell naturally into the puppy category.

"I was asking you a question. Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Filia was shaking with emotion.

Xelloss met her eyes with his closed shut and a smile.

Filia sputtered, "Amelia is a minor and a priestess-in-training and everyone else here is minor, except maybe you, and I don't know that you're not!"

Xelloss was mystified and asked, "You think everyone here is under eighteen?"

"Eighteen? No, you idiot! Twenty-one! The legal drinking age in the province of Seyruun is twenty-one! Any moron would know that! It's like the White Shrine capital of the world...where the law, justice and purity rule!"

"I just moved here recently!" he snapped back at her. "And it's eighteen in Atlas City where Valgaav and I were living. And I am..._much_ older than that!"

"Could have fooled me," she sniffed defiantly. "You are the most immature little boy I've ever had the unfortunate experience to meet." She turned on a heel and marched importantly out of the room. "Zelly! I want to go home, now."

"Hey! What did I do to you?" Xelloss shook his head and watched the retreating girl.

Filia's demand caught Zelgadiss off-guard. He had been really enjoying the entire evening. From his standpoint, the party was a brilliant success. They had danced and sung along with the music, ate and talked until late. He smiled when he thought about how Filia had pulled his near-waist-length, silky, dark hair back into a ponytail and told him how 'cool' it was. Zel knew he attracted his fair share of female attention. Only Gourry's hair was longer, and his clothes advertised trendy fashion taste and money. He had a car, tonight anyway, and a hot, gorgeous girlfriend to flash around. "She does seem to like me, doesn't she?" Zel smiled to himself with almost giddy satisfaction.

"Zelly!"

"Okay, Filia. I want to say goodbye first," he muttered and agilely slipped around her and over to Valgaav. "Hey, Filia wants to go, so..."

"Why don'tcha take her home, then come back?"

_Why not?_ "Sure, good idea. Thanks, I'll do that." Happy with his decision, Zelgadiss rushed to Filia's side.

"Zel-gaaaaa-diss!" Xelloss called from the hall, dangling an old phone handle from its cord. "Telephone call for you!"

"Just a minute," Zel said apologetically to Filia, and then took the call.

"That's anOTHER minute," she reminded him.

But it was an unwelcome call lasting less than one minute.

"Are you okay?" Xelloss asked. The color had drained from Zel's face and he looked as if he was about to faint as he hung up the receiver.

"Ah, no. I got to go." He shook himself to action. "I'm up shit creek at home."

"Sorry to hear that," Xelloss said sincerely.

"Hey, is everyone going?" Sylphiel called out. "Before you do, I just wanted to be sure everyone's coming to Mr. Tadaaki's funeral tomorrow. Mr. Xelloss, you and Valgaav may come as well. I know you never knew the man, but...well...it would be okay. I don't think he had many friends or family in town. He never mentioned any. I'm sure it would be nice to have a large gathering."

"Oh, yes, Mr. 'Faithful and Bright'," Xelloss quipped before thinking.

Zelgadiss flashed him a warning glare. _How would you know that?_

Xelloss swallowed. _How indeed?_ "Ah..."

"Oh, you _must _be Japanese, Xel, you understood that!" she cried out. "I just knew you were!"

"Oh? Yes, it is possible," he smiled vaguely wondering how he, his cousin, and Zelgadiss could go to the funeral of this man and not be recognized by the funeral home staff. That would give away their real occupations unless they disguised themselves. _Disguises? Well, now that sounded like fun! _"Certainly, we'll all show to support you. Where did you say it was?"

"She'll call later with time and instructions," Valgaav put in. The less attention drawn to the Rubyeye name the better.

And so the party broke up sending everyone off to their various homes, and Zelgadiss to his doom.

Oh yes, he was in trouble for taking Eris' car without permission, but he had had a good time at the party. Besides, how big a deal was it really?

* * *

As it turned out, it was a very big deal. The punishment was harsh. "You act irresponsibly like that and I blame the company you keep," Rezo started in. "From now henceforth, you are forbidden to keep company with either that Valgaav or Xelloss character."

"What? You're telling me who I can hang out with now? I'm eighteen! You can't do that!"

"I could have had you arrested," Rezo reminded him sharply. "I nearly did call the police when Eris discovered her car gone, but then she found your...note. Furthermore," he raised his voice to halt his grandson's next remark. "FURTHERMORE, you must quit work. I want no more contact with those bad seeds. You will be working for me this summer, after all."

"You can't make me quit my job, I just started! I like the job. I'm learning stuff, more than in a year of school. None of this...this...car stuff has anything to do with them anyway. It was all my idea."

Zelgadiss tried hard, but sadly, his situation left him obligated to obey his grandfather's rules.

"Consider yourself grounded until further notice. Your behavior will dictate how I deal with you in the future." Rezo watched as Zelgadiss ground his heel into the linoleum, spun around, and stomped off to his room in a blind fury. "And I'll have Eris cut your hair tomorrow. You look like a girl!"

Luckily, Zelgadiss had slammed his door before he shouted out his opinions on that subject. Rezo might have had to remove the door from its hinges for that vulgar outburst.

Without a computer in his room or a phone, Zelgadiss was cut off from his friends, the world. Outside of his own problems, he was thinking of the funeral he would be missing. He had wanted to tell Sylphiel, somehow, about her dead friend. She should be prepared to meet Tadaaki's widow, which Zelgadiss had learned existed when he inventoried the man's personal belongings. Tadaaki had hidden his real situation and life from Sylphiel. How would she feel running into a grieving widow and all his other family members unprepared? Would Xelloss or Valgaav think to warn her? They didn't know her very well and if they did, what would they say if she pressed them with the dreaded question, 'How do you know?'

Zel pounded his pillow and swore he'd leave home and break out on his own soon. Sooner than soon. When he could find the money. He hated his grandfather. He hated him bad right now. He fell asleep hating him deeply.

* * *

"What's going on?" Zelgadiss asked brushing the hair out of his eyes in the morning light.

Valgaav stood before him and Rezo. "I am allowing you this one special exemption. You are required on the job," Rezo said. "This man has come to take you there and return you immediately afterwards. No exceptions. It is an emergency, otherwise I wouldn't consider it. Be sure to turn in your notice while you are there."

Valgaav regarded Rezo with narrowed eyes. He was not pleased to hear that news, but remained silent. Zelgadiss would tell him what was up on the way to the mortuary.

"Fine. If you leave, I'll get dressed."

"Nothing fancy. Quick's better," Valgaav advised Zelgadiss before closing the door on his way out.

Zel carelessly threw on a shirt and jeans, and then ran out the door to where Valgaav and Xelloss, behind the wheel, were waiting with the engine running. "Thanks for springing me. What's the occasion?"

"We thought you'd want to head off your friends. Tadaaki's entire family, some from Japan, is showing up," Xelloss chuckled. "He was a very important man, it turns out."

"So what's this about you quitting work?" Valgaav growled.

Zelgadiss fought back the angry tears as he told his story.

"Shit..." Valgaav agreed.

"Well, we'll figure something out, won't we Vally?" Xelloss smiled. "But for now, show him the costumes."

"Costumes? What for...? Oh, so the funeral home employees don't recognize us. I get it," Zel smiled. "What have you got for me?"

The Honorable Mr. Tadaaki's funeral was not a lavish affair, as funerals go, but the turnout was significant. Because of the expected crowd, Mr. Vurumagen chose to open early for a_ visitation_ prior to the actual funeral.

"A visitation is a time where last respects are paid to the deceased, where there is time to convey sympathies to the deceased's family before the funeral, and where curiosity can be staved off ahead of time," Xelloss told Zelgadiss as they changed into their costumes. They were in the chilly cadaver keep while the other mortuary workers were on a coffee break.

"Hurry," Valgaav urged them. "Break's about over. Eris is here today."

"She would be among the living, as my luck would have it," Zelgadiss quipped as he checked his reflection in the x-ray window on his way out.

Xel twittered in a silly way and Valgaav snorted a chuckle, and then fired off, "I see Gourry and Lina. I'll go first. Xel, help Zelgadiss get his boobs straight."

Valgaav minced out the door in the lead. He hated heels.

In this case, the visitation took place at the Rubyeye mortuary in the hours before the funeral. There were dozens of mourners milling about inside already.

"I'm sorry but family only at this time," a tall woman told Lina, blocking her way.

"Really? I got friends meeting us here," Lina said. She didn't like to be told what to do, but this lady towering over her was imposing, so she didn't press her luck and try to fight her way past.

"You'll have to remain in the parking lot, then," the woman insisted, then strong-armed both Gourry and Lina away from the door.

"That sure was the ugliest woman I've ever seen," Gourry said to Lina in an undertone.

"No kidding. And rude too."

Back at the rear entrance, the woman rejoined her two companions. Xelloss asked her, "How did it go?"

Valgaav, in disguise, glared at him, "Great. We were just in time, but I don't know how long they'll be fooled. Lina seemed suspicious."

"She's a clever girl," Xelloss said with a smile. "Oh, there's Filia, my turn! And Zelgadiss, I see Sylphiel over there."

"I'll speak to her," Zel sighed, adjusted his itchy 'brassiere' one last time, and set out across the parking lot.

"Family only at this time," Xelloss chortled to Filia in a quavery, pinched voice. "Miss."

"Oh, really? How odd. I'm meeting some friends." She squinted up her eyes and stared at Xel, then asked, "You gotta twin brother? You look awfully familiar."

"Really? No, but people tell me that all the time. Oh, look! Could those be your friends over there?"

Filia looked around and spotted Gourry soaring above the car roofs. "Yeah. We'll see about that exclusion thing. Lina isn't one to put up with discrimination."

"Sorry, but..." Xel's voice trailed off as Filia strode off purposely toward Lina. "...not really."

"Ah, sorry Miss, but you can't go in there. Family only." Zelgadiss looked the part of a woman, but he was unaccustomed to masking his distinctive voice. He coughed.

"Are you okay?" Amelia asked him. "I have some throat lozenges." She dug through her tiny fur-trimmed purse furiously.

"Family?" Sylphiel looked confused. "There must be a mistake. The funeral we're coming for won't have many guests. It's for Mr. Tadaaki."

Zelgadiss waved in the general direction of the home. "Oh, it's all for him today. Lots of people showing up from Japan to help his, ah...widow and children get through this...difficult time."

Amelia dropped her box of medicated tablets. "What! Children? Oh!"

Zelgadiss reached out and caught Sylphiel before she sank to the ground. "Sylphiel, I'm sorry. I just found out and had to stop you from going in there without knowing."

"M-Mr. Zelgadiss?" Amelia gasped.

Indeed, their activity attracted the attention of Lina and their other friends. Soon, they were all gathered at the edge of the parking lot with Zelgadiss feeling very embarrassed. It was Amelia who broke the tension. "Oh, I get it! You're all doing this as part of a film!"

"I don't see any filming going on," Lina said. "I'll bet it's just a stupid job needing low-rate actors. Am I right?"

"Bing-go!" Xelloss giggled. He was relieved that their 'film' experience could be put to some use. "We'll take any kind of job, I guess, to pay the bills. Sad, but true."

"I'm already working on getting you something great," Amelia cried out. "Poor Mr. Zelgadiss, you just don't make a very convincing girl. Nor do you, Mr. Valgaav, no insult intended."

"None taken," Valgaav said.

"Thank the gods," Zelgadiss sighed.

"I thought you looked pretty good. Had me fooled," Gourry said with sincerity.

Zel could have kicked his friend, and with the heels he was wearing he could do some real damage, but he'd have to go through Lina to get at Gourry. That wasn't going to happen. Lina was the toughest person he knew.

"What about me? You can still tell I'm a guy, right?" Xelloss whined, feeling left out.

"If you ever were one," Filia muttered.

Xel and Filia exchanged a few more pleasantries under their breaths.

"You must be very talented with make-up, Mr. Xelloss!" Amelia said as a propitiatory gesture effectively ending their spat.

"Never mind all that. What's with the 'family only' story?" Lina demanded. She pushed her way to the forefront. Now Filia could not get at Xel even if she wanted to argue further.

"It's true," Valgaav said simply. "We looked into the arrangements to see about the time and figured you wouldn't fit into the funeral plans." He passed off the partial truth with ease.

"Well, now that we know, I still wanna go in and get a look at the guy," Lina pressed.

"Oh, I don't think that would be a very good idea," Xelloss waved his hands excitedly, fending her off. "The first rule of funeral etiquette: Don't attend funerals of people you don't know."

"You don't say," Lina was pumped to challenge him. "Well, I'm used to breaking the rules, so I'll start with that one! Come on, everyone! Let's go in!"

Xelloss and Valgaav were hard-pressed to contain their friends, Lina in particular. Zelgadiss and Amelia remained with Sylphiel, who alone of her friends was actually mourning. Xelloss bobbed around reciting 'funeral etiquette rules', while Valgaav generally took the more physical approach to keeping the kids separate from the Tadaaki people.

"Don't try to outdo the family's grief," Xelloss reminded a sniffling Sylphiel.

"Okay," she patted her eyes with an offered handkerchief.

"Who is that girl, I wonder?" the widow grumbled over her shoulder to no one in particular.

"Acquaintance from the club he where he worked out," Xelloss whispered. "He thought it was important to keep in shape. Ah, the girl's husband is the tall blond man over there."

The widow was satisfied with the explanation, to his relief. Which was fortunate because he nearly missed Gourry as he said in passing, "Maybe I outta try and collect his club fee."

"Nooooo. Rule number 20: Don't approach the widow and ask for the money the deceased owed you," Xelloss gasped.

Valgaav took Gourry by the elbow and walked him to the other end of the room. "You think there's anything to eat yet?" Gourry asked him. "Or is that breaking another one of those rules?"

Valgaav growled his discernable annoyance, "It certainly does. Don't ask about the 'eats' the minute you arrive at the funeral home."

Xelloss noticed Filia, Sylphiel, and Amelia peering into the coffin and practically flew to their side. He arrived just in time to catch them breaking rules 9 and 10.

"I don't know, Sylphie, something seems fishy to me. I hope they did an autopsy."

"I'm not even sure this is the man I dated. He looks way better than he ever did alive."

And rule number 5 was getting tested.

"Well, I think his wife should know about his fooling around. It would be the right thing. I'd sure want to know!" Filia insisted in her self-righteous mood.

"Why don't you try to make the grieving family feel better by handing them a typewritten list of the deceased's faults?" Xel hissed at her.

"That's simply ridiculous!" she sniffed. "Come on, Sylphie, it's getting crowded over here.

And just as Xelloss thought he was done with those two, Sylphiel asked him seriously, "Don't you think she ought to know about his secret life?"

"Absolutely not. Rule number 11: Do realize that the grieving family probably knows the deceased better than you do: especially if it's your immoral boyfriend."

That seemed to work. "Oh, okay. If you think so."

"Gods," Xelloss ran a hand through his hair and wished the day to end.

"See? I sent those flowers. Damned extravagant of me, huh?" It was Lina, of course.

Xelloss pivoted so fast he became dizzy. "Oh, my... Lina! Nice flowers, but please don't tell everyone how much your flower arrangement cost and offer to show them the bill if they don't believe you– rule number 3."

"I wasn't going to, exactly," she squirmed under his reproachful gaze. "I don't suppose I can remove anything from the coffin as a memento either, can I?"

He shook his head and smiled, "No. That's rule number 2. Oh, and before you ask, rule number 4 is: Do offer your help, but don't charge for it."

"You are just full of weird information, Xel. Well, I guess were done here. No real reason to go to the funeral, is there?"

"No there isn't," he agreed enthusiastically. "Might as well leave. How about brunch?"

"Now you're talking," she grinned. "But, can you guys go yet?"

"Oh, yes, our job is done," he smiled in return.

"Then do me a favor, okay?"

"Of course!"

"Drop the drag look before you take us all out," Lina said and turned to find her other friends. "Hey, guess what? Xel here is taking us all out for brunch!"

"Oh, my..." Xelloss sighed.

End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 4.


	5. Attention to Detail

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER FIVE **– Attention to Detail –

"From the moment you first call upon us until well after services are completed,

we pay attention to every detail. It must be right. "

* * *

After changing back into their street clothes, Xelloss and Valgaav regrouped in the parking lot with the others, Zelgadiss found Vurumagen to turn in his resignation. Although he had changed clothes like the other two in the men's room, he didn't have to hide on the way out. It didn't matter if anyone recognized him any more. In fact, it was probably just as well if Eris did. She could report back that he dutifully showed up to quit his job.

"This is my formal notice. I'm sorry, but there was an unfortunate change of plans," Zelgadiss explained.

Vurumagen seemed to be taking it well. His usual flat expressionless face took on a definite glow of rapture.

"Ah, sir?" Zelgadiss stretched out his arm further and dropped the disregarded paper on the man's desk. He was growing more uncomfortable by the minute. "Well, I'll be going, then, if there's nothing for me to sign or anything."

"Promise you'll come back," Vurumagen said, rising from his chair and approaching Zelgadiss.

"I'd like to, but for now it's out of the question." Zelgadiss started to leave, but was held back by the other man's strong grip to his shoulder.

"Beautiful..." Vurumagen whispered as he pulled Zel closer and looked deeply into his face. "I can do so much better."

"What?" Not only was Zel greatly discomfited, he was utterly confused.

"Your make-up, honey. Very amateurish. But if you'd like, I could teach you _all_ the tricks of the trade."

_Oh, that. _Zel regretted rushing his changing task and forgetting the girlish face he still bore. Zelgadiss also knew the man 'fixed up' the corpses for viewing– Xelloss had told him so. But he read all the intentional meaning into the man's words, and he wanted no part of his offer. "No, thanks. Ah, I have to go...now!" And he bolted out of the office in a blur of beige jeans and white t-shirt.

Xel took Zelgadiss directly to his home first. "We'll miss you, but don't worry, we'll hook up somehow. We have our ways."

Zelgadiss smiled weakly, "I wish. Well, thanks for the lift," and hopped out, trooping up the walk to his grandfather's house like a man to the gallows, which was closer to the truth than he would have liked to have thought.

* * *

The next day Zelgadiss rode to Zanaffar Pharmaceuticals with his grandfather, who was one of their founding research scientists, certainly their preeminent one. Zelgadiss was a combination janitor, message boy, and servant to the lab elite. He hated it. The job was smelly, dirty, demanding, and required an ugly grey work uniform; it was, in fact, a job like the one he had at the mortuary, but without the dead bodies and friendly banter. He had to wear his hair tied back and stuffed down his coveralls shirt, too. Without working at it, he could come up with a long list of 'things to hate about this job', but what topped it was the poignant: no friendly camaraderie._ No friends_.

He worked without a break until lunch, at which point he found a solitary spot in the cafeteria and picked at his meal. He was a social being. He needed friends and conversation, but here he was very much alone. The elites generally went out for lunch, and the 'peons' crammed into the basement cafeteria at the stroke of 12:00 noon. Within seconds he was sandwiched in between low-level technicians and office staff, but he was still alone. No friendly faces to be found.

He couldn't stand the noise, so he jumped up, tossed out his remaining food, and left the room. He had no idea where he was headed until he found the central patio exit. He pushed out the door to an over-hanging balcony and looked down at the tables and chairs heating up in the afternoon sun. Maybe he'd try eating out there the next day. Gloom pressed upon his heart. No, maybe he'd just escape it all and jump. Who was he kidding? He was too faint-of-heart to do any such thing.

"Hey!"

Zelgadiss started at the unwelcome voice behind him, "Huh?"

"You work in Dr. Rezo's lab?"

"Yes."

"Take this to him. NOW! It's urgent. He's been waiting for this information all morning!"

Zelgadiss wanted to tell the other man that it wasn't his fault the folder wasn't available earlier. He just worked there. But he didn't have the nerve to snot off to a superior (it was a good guess that the man was his superior, everyone was), so instead he took the document. "Fine, where is he now?"

"Lab 9, sub-basement level."

"That's restricted," Zel pointed to his ID badge which gave him no such authority.

"Oh, f! I don't want to have to do this now. I have this appointment at the racquetball court. Listen, here's the pass code, mine. Use it on the touch-pad entry lock to get in, then just give Dr. Rezo the folder. He'll be so happy to see this he won't question who it is that's giving it to him."

Zelgadiss reluctantly took the document, and asked, "And if he does?"

"Tell him Dilgear sent you."

"Dilgear. You're Dilgear?"

"Yeah, thanksmanyou'rethebest," Dilgear said in a rush of words, and then took off.

"Yeah, that's me," Zelgadiss sighed.

He hadn't been in the restricted area before. This was where the top secret formulas were concocted, he knew. Keying in the code gained him instant access to the laboratory. He wondered what he should call the man; 'grandfather' didn't sound very professional. He settled on, "Dr. Rezo?"

There was no answer. He carried the file into the empty room, empty of people but lined with filing cabinets. He could see that it was more of a large hall with a door at the far end plastered with WARNING signs. Above the door were three lights: green (lit up), yellow, and red. Green was good.

He knocked at the door and waited. Footsteps could be heard from the other side of the room and then the door opened. "What is it? This had better be important."

"You requested this file," Zelgadiss told his grandfather.

"Oh, yes. Good. Good. Who are you?" Rezo focused on his face. "Zelgadiss, what are you doing here?"

Zelgadiss watched his grandfather's face change colors. From the word "important" his face was washed in green from the light above the door. But around the time he had said the word "file", the color was golden, and by the repeat of "good", his grandfather's face was unquestionably red.

And mad. No, not mad exactly. Alarmed.

"Get out! OUT! NOW!"

Zelgadiss felt a force on his chest, which at the time he thought was his grandfather's hand pushing him backwards out the door. He tried to say something. Rezo was yelling, but he couldn't hear over the wail of sirens. The flash of red and sirens– those were the last impressions passing through Zelgadiss' mind before the explosion blew them apart.

* * *

Several days later, Xel, Lina, Amelia, and Valgaav were visiting Zelgadiss in the hospital. He was wrapped head-to-toe in gauze. Lina was explaining as best she could what had happened in the laboratory. "The investigations team believes that a powder on the file you delivered, or in it, set off a chemical reaction with stuff in the air from whatever your grandfather was working on."

"Problem is..." Xel began.

"Come over closer, Mr. Xelloss. Remember, he can't hear us very well," Amelia said.

He slid off is windowsill perch and stood by the bed, near Lina. "Problem is, no one knows where the mystery compound came from. The authorities blamed it on you at first."

"You mean...Rezo did." Zel blinked and with an effort forced past his still-raw throat a few more words, "I didn't know."

"Course not," Valgaav said. "You may have had dust in your hair from cleaning. Or it may have gotten there from someplace else before you even handled it."

"That's right. It's all conjecture on their part anyway. They haven't even a clue what set off the reaction. The lab is such a wreck that they still can't trace the residue. They may never know." Lina looked deeply into her friend's eyes then looked away, grief-stricken by the despair he had revealed.

"Oh, Mr. Zelgadiss don't worry about anything except getting better," Amelia said. "They won't let us stay long today, but we'll come tomorrow and the next day and the next...every day until you are all well and ready to go home!"

"Not...going back."

Xel and Valgaav exchanged glances, but remained silent.

"Okay, then we'll find a place for you. You just do everything the nurses and doctors tell you to do and we'll take care of the rest, right everyone?" Amelia asked the others in the room.

"Right," Lina agreed, although she didn't know how her poor friend was going to get past the next few painful weeks, days, hours. "You know about your grandfather, right?"

Zel looked at her sharply, and then shook his head, "No."

Amelia drew in her breath quickly, "Lina, maybe we should wait."

But it was too late; Zelgadiss was clearly agitated and wanting to be informed, so Valgaav went on. "We don't know much. He was admitted to the hospital the same time you were, and he's not here now, which means he's alive, anyway."

Zelgadiss nodded. Rezo hadn't passed through the Rubyeye Funeral Home and Mortuary was what he meant.

"He must have been hurt, or he'd be here visiting you. You might wanna let Eris in the next time she comes," Lina said. "She probably wants to pass on information from him."

Zelgadiss closed his eyes, shutting out the world. The explosion had damaged his hearing, his skin burned and itched interchangeably, and he ached all over. He couldn't move or eat. His grandfather blamed him for blowing up the lab and hadn't visited him yet, _wouldn't_ visit him. The man didn't care. His parents didn't even care. They all just thought he was a worthless kid and now they'd been proved right. It would have been better had he died. Now he'd cost them all their life savings and retirement to save his wretched life. _And what was under the bandages?_

When he opened his eyes the room was empty. It was dark outside and the TV was on, sound off, or on, didn't matter. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, soaking into his wrappings. _What has happened to me? What is hidden under the bandages? _He wanted to die. He suddenly wanted a pad of paper and pen to write his will, and so he buzzed a nurse.

* * *

Xel opened his door to find to his delight and surprise that Lina was waiting on his doorstep. "Hello! Why, Lina, how nice. Come in."

"Before you get any ideas, I'm here to talk about Zelgadiss," she began. "But I wouldn't turn down a soda. You still have cookies?"

Ideas were forming faster than dead skin cells, but ideas were all Xelloss had up to that point. "I'll get you something, but the cookies are gone."

"You've been checking in on him, right?"

Xel poured her a glass of orange juice and set a slice of pound cake at her place at the table. Her delicate-looking little fingers grabbed the cake before he could offer her a fork. He decided he would have to be quicker next time.

"Valgaav and I take turns daily. I saw him yesterday; he's there now and ought to be back in a few minutes for dinner then we're off to work for the night."

"He's depressed. I've never known him to be that way. I don't know what to say any more. I feel like just slapping him, but of course I wouldn't," she added quickly.

"Of course. I think he sees an uncertain future ahead of him and he's concerned about his appearance. The wrappings are coming off permanently some time this week and that's his primary focus. But I see resolving his living conditions to be the most urgent. Valgaav and I would like to offer him an alternative to returning to his grandfather's home, a place here with us."

"That sounds great, Xel. Perfect, if he'd accept. You know, Luna and I grew up with Nahga and Amelia. We were runaways and Phil took us both in. So the point is I know that there are times when a 'home' offers no home life. I'll go with you to convince him, if you go with me to gather his stuff and face Rezo and Eris."

"Deal," Xel smiled. He reached down and petted a long-legged black tomcat that nudged him hungrily.

He opened a cabinet, chose two cans from a stack of dozens, and began opening the cat food. Two turns of the opener, and two additional tails appeared from out of nowhere.

"Are they multiplying?" Lina asked. She recognized the fat tabby, but not the small grey female or large tom.

"So it seems. Valgaav has a soft spot. He collects strays, fattens them up, gets them vet checkups, and finds them homes. These are the latest. It would ruin the tough-guy persona that he cultivates if word got out about him. "

"Tough guy? He doesn't seem so tough to me. Quiet, maybe."

"Sensitive, too, but don't tell him I told you that either."

As Xel set out three bowls of fishy-smelling food, Valgaav stepped into the kitchen, "Don't tell me what?"

"Don't tell you how pretty you look in a dress," Xelloss said.

Valgaav reached across the table and punched his cousin, muttering something unsavory under his breath. Lina joined in with a shove of her own. "You're in my space. Move it! So, you just saw Zelly in the hospital?" Lina asked.

The boys sobered instantly and sat down. "Yeah. Doctor's taking off the gauze tomorrow morning. Almost did it while I was there, but they were still monitoring a recent climb in his temperature. Infection problems. Gotta tell ya, his hair's..." but Valgaav reached down for an armload of grey cat.

"I hope your about to say 'okay' 'cause his hair is his pride and joy," Lina said.

Valgaav shook his head, "I was there when they were checking a few spots for healing and it was around the back of his head. What I saw was stiff and silvery."

"His hair turned grey like an old man?"

Valgaav passed Lina the grey cat and nabbed up the heavy, black tom, "White maybe. From where I was the light wasn't good, but it wasn't dark, or long."

Lina shook her head, "Hope it grows back okay. This won't help his attitude." She met Xel's eyes. "Better make that offer to move in here before the wrappings come off. Hey, is that cat getting fatter?"

"I'm afraid she has," Xel smoothed the tabby's fur. "Vet says she's about to drop a litter any day."

"Holy...catnip! What do you have to so for that?"

Valgaav chuckled, "Make her a box with some towels and put it where the other cats can't get to it and hope she chooses to give birth in it." He moved to the sink to refill a water dish. "We woulda asked him to move in earlier, but I was waiting for word from my dad."

"Xel, you said he left a message?"

"Yeah, it's fine with him."

"Your dad, Gaav, doesn't live here much," Lina observed.

"No. He's got a lady-friend these days."

Lina sat looking at her empty glass, scratching the contented cat's head. "I don't think Filia's gone to see Zelgadiss but once, and that time was with Amelia. He's sick about losing her. He knows she won't like him if he comes out looking like a freak. She's very caught up on his, like, movie-star appearance. She wants to date a Seyruun golden boy. You know, she can only look past his Japanese heritage because he doesn't look obviously Asian. If he is scarred, she'll drop him like a rock."

"Then I guess it's up to the rest of us to work some magic to make _rocks _float," Xel said. "Because there is no way he's going to avoid chemical burns. I read his chart."

The doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," Valgaav said. He opened the door to find Amelia's sunny face peering up at him.

"Hi, Mr. Valgaav! I have great news!"

"I could use some. Come on in."

Amelia was bubbling over with excitement. "I got you jobs!"

"What?"

Xel and Lina joined them in the front room.

"Well, not jobs, but almost jobs...what's the word...auditions! At the Little Theater downtown where a new play's being cast. They want fresh blood and you two would be perfect. Here," she handed over a pair of scripts, "The cover paper has the details. Just be prepared to deliver those lines Saturday. Oooh, a kitty!" Amelia squealed in delight as the little gray female begged for attention.

"Yeah, she likes you," Valgaav said with a measure of tenderness Lina hadn't figured him for.

Her eyebrows rose as she registered its possible significance, and then the doorbell rang again.

"When did this place get so popular? I'll get it."

Xelloss watched his cousin lurch off to open the door, and then pulled Lina back into the kitchen with a touch and a tilt of his head. "Just you," he whispered.

"I'll be back in a sec, Amelia." Once in the kitchen she folded her arms, "Yeah?"

"You noticed." Xel didn't say what, but they both seemed to know that they were talking about Valgaav and Amelia. "How do you feel about it?"

She shrugged and returned to her seat at the kitchen table. "He's only a couple years older, but like a decade ahead of her experience-wise. She talks about him a lot, but then she talks about you, too, and it's not as if she's in love or anything, I don't think. She's all for 'causes' these days, so it's hard for me to tell the difference. He say anything to you?"

Xel smiled and shook his head, "You kidding? He wouldn't say anything to me until he had a ring on her finger. He's not the 'sharing' type, which is why I asked you. See, he doesn't get close to others. He's ordinarily unsociable. I know, he seems pretty average to you, but that was my point. He's been more outgoing since we met you guys."

"That right? Must be our beauty and charm."

"Possiblyit works for me." Xel tried looking into Lina's eyes, but she was averting them purposely. "He went to Atlas City to escape life at home. I was sent there to 'watch over' my cousin and take classes, naturally."

"That's where you guys met my sister and Nahga?"

Xelloss did not want to talk about his past love-life with Lina's older sister. "It wouldn't be in my best interest to answer that question."

Lina jumped up and leaped across the table in order to wrestle Xelloss into a head lock. "Think again, buster."

He nearly told her that 'it was a secret,' but decided that he'd have to face Lina with the truth someday. He might as well get it out of the way now and for good. So, it was with some reluctance that Xelloss admitted, "He and Nahga were only a convenience thing."

"Huh? What does that mean?" She tightened her grip.

"It made a foursome including Luna," Xel explained simply.

"A foursome? Who with...? You dated my sister? You were _that_ guy?"

"I don't know; was he a good guy or a bad guy?" He was looking at Lina with a bemused smile.

"Too good to be true, and too bad to be real," was Lina's enigmatic reply, but she released Xel. "If Luna knew I was sitting in your house with you, she would kill me."

Xelloss let out the breath he had been holding. "We were mismatched, that's for sure. We were on opposite sides of every argument and every cause and I always got the higher grade in every class..."

"And you flirted with every other girl in the university and dumped her for someone thinner, prettier, and richer. 'Course she should have figured you'd be that way since she got you on the rebound from a dorm-mate, whom you left when you got her pregnant."

"Luna told you that! I can't believe she thought that about me. Sure, I broke up with...that girl, but it wasn't my baby. _I'm pretty sure._ She hurt me and I left her. Luna, well, she didn't strike me as the kind that would cheat on me, and she wasn't and didn't. I liked your sister fine, Lina, but we just didn't get along, and that's the truth."

"I know. I did some checking up on you guys on my own. You got your faults, but what you just told me was pretty much what I knew. Luna won't hear me out, but then she never has listened to me so that's no surprise."

"Then why did you say...?"

Lina cut him off, "Just testing you. If I really believed you were all that bad, I wouldn't be here. On the other hand, if I thought you were perfect, I wouldn't be here either. No one can be more perfect than me, ya know." Lina gave him a cute-as-a-button smile, which made him laugh.

The flow of further conversation was staunched by the soul-absorbent cry of Martina arriving in the house.

"So, you read it, right? I certainly have given you both more than enough time to read it. So, what do you think? It will make a great movie. What about those action sequences? Pretty exciting, right? I worked really hard on those. I stayed up all night reading about guns and ammo types and how the aiming thing works. I think it made it more realistic, don't you? Okay, so maybe the love scenes could be pumped up a little bit, but hey, it was my first attempt at lemony-type stuff and it's kind of icky to write about other people rolling around in bed. I mean, it's one thing to do it yourself, not that I do anything like that that much, I mean, I get plenty of opportunities but I don't want to spread myself too thin, if you get my meaning, so I was writing from my imagination mostly, but I have a great imagination that way because I've read a whole bunch of romance novels, the kinds you see at the grocery store with the pretty flowery covers and the hot guys. Wow, where do you think they find guys like them to pose for pictures, huh? I mean, you don't see guys like that everyday. Oh, but you're really cute, you know? Did you notice my hair?"

Valgaav noticed her new hair color the moment he opened the door. "Umm...yeah."

"I dyed it mint green to match yours!" she cried out.

That was the noise which brought Lina and Xel's conversation to a halt. Poor Amelia was speechless throughout the entire monologue.

* * *

It was a warm summer night, but not inside the cadaver keep where Valgaav and Xel were finishing up another embalming assignment.

"We could sure use more help if they're going to leave so much for us to finish up, at least they should replace Zelgadiss," Valgaav complained as he finished stitching the lips shut. He started smoothing wax into the crease.

"And he had such a nice touch with the hair," Xel added with his flair for whimsy. "But they won't. I told them not to."

"Not to what?"

"Not to fill Zelgadiss' position. I want him back. He's family and we need to stick together."

"Fine by me, you know that, but there's something else, isn't there?"

"You think so? Well, well, you knowthat it hasgot to be a secret then." Xelloss smiled briefly then frowned, "Gods, what a mess this one was. Don't you just hate the bullet-to-the-brain suicides? Without embalming, most remains become un-viewable within a short time, sure, but with these... What are these people thinking when they shove a gun in their mouth? Do they imagine they'll have perfect control and the bullet will make a clean hole in the top of their heads? They certainly aren't considering the feelings of the ones-they-leave-behind and how they might not wish to view the newly departed with only half a face intact. Not one of those pictures that we are accustomed to seeing. There, that is the best we can do. I dare Vurumagen to say that this is not the finest modeling job he's ever seen."

Valgaav leaned over, scrutinizing his cousin's reconstruction work. "Nice wax nose. You got a steadier hand than I do inserting those eyelashes."

"You're not just saying that because you hate removing the nose hair? Thanks, but you know I got a lot of practice that time I shaved off half that guy's moustache and I had to replace it one hair at a time."

Valgaav replaced the sheet and rolled the cadaver back into cold storage. "That was one helluva long night." He turned to Xel and said, "I can't help thinking of Zelgadiss and tomorrow."

"He must be terrified."

"And alone," Valgaav reminded him.

"But you warned him."

"Yeah, I called and told him 'bout his hair, what I saw and what you read on his charts after Lina and Amelia left." Valgaav shook his head. "It was what I would want a friend to do for me."

Xel sighed, "Sun's nearly up. Want to grab something to eat then just head over to the hospital?"

"Yeah, home to shower first."

"No kidding!" Xel agreed.

* * *

They were greeted at the door to their home by the large tomcat and the smaller gray cat.

"Hungry? Yeah, yeah..." Valgaav grumbled at them on the way to the kitchen to feed his charges. "Where's your tabby bud, hm?"

"Val-ly!" Xel hurried in from his own bedroom. "My room, hurry!"

Valgaav followed dutifully, and then chuckled, "Shit, Xel... You know it's gonna be a bad day when your cat abandons the nice box you prepared for her and has her kittens in your dresser drawer!"

Xel leaned on the wall; arms folded over his chest a look of disgust on his face. "That was my underwear in there. Why MY underwear? The socks were nearly new."

"Better yours than mine," Valgaav said with a smirk. "You don't wear underwear."

"You really shouldn't know that about me, cousin. Besides, I do wear socks! What am I going to do now?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to have my shower."

End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 5


	6. Personalization

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER SIX **– Personalization –

"We can assist in helping you personalize services for your loved one."

* * *

"Funeral-related work has been called the Dismal Trade, overrun by sanctimonious con men and carpetbaggers, insidiously exploiting the bereaved at the moment of their greatest weakness."

Zelgadiss remembered his friend and cousin, Xel, ranting about that during one of his more recent visits. Well, the same could be said of the medical industry, as far as Zelgadiss was concerned. He was looking askance at his reflection in the mirror over the small sink in his hospital room, while listening to the useless droning of his doctor.

"We are sorry, Zelgadiss, but for now it is the best we could do," the doctor said.

Zelgadiss' eyes narrowed and slid lower to better view the floor. He knew that what was implied, but left unsaid, was the fact that nothing more could be done for the little money his family is willing to spend on his re-habilitation.

"You are lucky..." the doctor continued.

"Oh yeah, I'm so damned lucky to be alive! I should thank my f—king lucky stars, shouldn't I?" Zelgadiss shouted.

"You are young and alive. You have all your body parts, and they work. Yes, I should say you should be grateful to those who worked to keep you together and make you well. The rest is up to you. As new cures for your...ah...condition are developed, as your doctor, I will let you know. Yes, your life has been disrupted. It will change in ways you hadn't planned on, in ways you haven't considered yet, and in ways you may not have wanted, but you are a strong young man, Zelgadiss. I want you to meet with a psychologist regularly to help you and guide you in the next few months."

"As if anyone will want to waste their money on that," Zelgadiss thought to himself.

The doctor paused to let his words sink in. "You have some friends waiting outside who would like to see you. Yes, _see_ you. I'll return later with your release papers, and then we can go over your care needs."

Zelgadiss listened in silence. Right at the moment the future seemed like a gray desert with nothing beyond the horizon but more of the same pointless struggle. "Why bother?" he wondered. "Who would hire a freak like me? Who will ever want to go out with me?_"_

The doctor shook his head fractionally as he left the room. In his place entered a nurse followed by three of Zelgadiss' friends. Sylphiel was starting her college education to be a nurse practitioner and was familiar with the hospital. In fact, this nurse was often her supervisor.

"Ah, hey Zel? Um, I brought a couple others to say..." Gourry stopped. The shock of seeing his childhood buddy completely altered was too much for him—even after Amelia had warned him that the bandages were to be removed this day and that he would look different. It took all of his reserves to compose his face and restrain himself from gawking foolishly, leaving nothing left to formulate words into meaningful sentences.

Amelia filled in immediately, "Hi! We wanted to be the first to greet you today." But even she was having difficulty coming to grips with this transformed Zelgadiss.

Sylphiel stepped up. "Oh, dear Zelly," she cried out. She flung her arms around him and wept into his chest. "I was so worried about you. Every day I came to see you, you were sleeping and when that infection got worse..."

"The tea you brought helped, more than all the crap they tried to fill me with," Zelgadiss said, sneaking a hard look at the nurse, and then pushed Sylphiel away gently. "They had a hard time inserting the needles in my arms; they poked and prodded trying to drug me with IV shit."

"You have not been a very good patient." A nurse changed out his drinking water and prepared to take his temperature. She looked at Sylphiel meaningfully, "He had to be sedated to have a catheter inserted, as you recall."

Zelgadiss blushed and looked away.

"I hope you will be better behaved while I remove it?"

Zelgadiss couldn't think up a more embarrassing time to have his friends present. "Not now."

"It's okay, Zelly," Sylphiel said kindly. "We'll step out and wait until you are cleared for release." Without waiting for his reply, she scooted the others out of his room whispering, "He really needs his privacy, guys."

Gourry waved, "Uh...later!"

Amelia was the first out. "Sylphiel! He...he...he's...blue!"

Zelgadiss woke up an hour later to the sounds of a growing group of friends entering his room. He wanted to hide, but had only a sheet to cover his lower extremities. As a result, he wrapped his arms around his chest and hid behind his fall of silver bangs, refusing to meet anyone's eyes.

Sylphiel was gripping Gourry's arm, encouraging him to talk to Zelgadiss, but no words were forthcoming. Gourry could feel waves upon waves of fear and loathing rushing off of his friend in turns; he was awash in it and couldn't speak for fear of drowning.

Xel and Valgaav, having seen much, much worse on a nightly basis, affected no outward appearance of surprise. They talked on as if it was just business as usual. Zelgadiss never looked up. He was more than ready to leave the hospital, and so Zelgadiss accepted Valgaav and Xel's offer to move into their house without hesitation (and without much grace either.)

"Says here he hasta stay away from fumes, like paint," Valgaav pointed out on a ten-page document he'd lifted off the doctor on his way into the room. "So that means no repainting that room for him, Xel."

Amelia, who had been very quiet and standing in the shadows until now, perked up to say, "I'll scrub the walls good and vacuum until the rug hasn't a speck of dust! And if there's a hard-wood floor under the rug, I'll rip off the rug and polish that floor until it shines like a mirror! I had bad allergies as a little girl and my room had an air cleaner in it to purify the air. We'll bring that over and keep you breathing clean air, no matter what!" She punctuated each of her statements with a skywards punch of her little fist and an enthusiastic cry so great that her other friends were struck mute a moment.

"Uhhh, yeah. I'll give her a hand," Lina added. "It's gonna get better, Zelly, ya know? Things have a way of working out for me, and in this case that means for you, too."

For Zelgadiss, however, there was an utter inability even to hope. It was an abyss where existence was a fear in itself. As he fully comprehended his dismal situation, the resulting misery was given away by his eyes. His emotional state was painfully transparent no matter how hard he tried to hide it from everyone.

* * *

"I'm just sayin' that you've been spending a lot of time over there lately, and I work all day, so when I got free time at night, I'd like to take ya out, but then yer over there." Gourry wanted his girlfriend to pay some attention to him, at least half as much as she spent over at that house full of other men.

"Yeah, Gourry, trying to cheer up Zelly and get him to eat– it's a real party. He's there all by himself at night and..."

"Lina, he's my friend too, okay? I get that, but he would understand you missing a night or two so you and I could go hang out."

"Would he?" Lina didn't want to invite Gourry to join her, although that solution had occurred to her. She would let him suggest it.

"If I get Filia to sit in for you, would ya go out tomorrow?"

"_If_...sure. But tonight we're going to haul the rest of Zelly's things to his new place. Xel and I worked it out with his grandfather, and we've already taken some clothes."

"You've seen Rezo?" Gourry asked.

"No, he must be hurt in some way because he refused to be seen in public, and Eris has moved in to take care of him, although she won't say why. Xel did the talking. It was all done over the phone. What? You're looking at me funny."

Gourry was watching Lina for signs that she was falling for that other guy, Xelloss. They spent more time in one another's company than Gourry liked, but Lina didn't appear to have a special attraction for Xel. There was no wistful look in her eye or trembling in her voice when she mentioned his name. Gourry smiled, thinking that there wasn't any danger of losing Lina, for the time being. "You just looked so pretty right then, that's all. You're doing a fine thing for Zelgadiss. I'm proud of ya."

"T-Thanks, Gourry," she faltered. His unveiled affection was hard to miss. His golden hair and cheerful smile filled her field of vision. "Like twin suns in the sky today," she mused.

He leaned way down and kissed her very lightly on the lips. He had chosen that moment for their first kiss because she wasn't expecting it, and they were standing in her doorway so he could make a quick getaway if he'd guessed wrong. He could sense her sudden intake of air, the tensing of her body against his. He glanced to the side checking his exit route as panic clenched at his gut. Then his attention was drawn back to where Lina's body touched his; there was the barest return of pressure as she responded positively to his kiss. All thoughts of competition fled his mind as _Lina, Lina, Lina_ filled it to brimming.

* * *

It was an uncomfortable evening for both Filia and Zelgadiss. It was a warm summer night and yet Zelgadiss was wearing a long-sleeved turtle-neck shirt and long pants. He had forgone the hooded sweatshirt this time; it was just too hot. There was no hiding his altered appearance, but he tried. Filia tried to keep her banter light and airy, telling him about her day without staring slack-jawed at his incredible appearance. Zelgadiss' long, dark hair had been transformed into a wild mop of silvery strands completely covering one side of his face before sweeping out at the sides and back, barely brushing his shoulders. His delicate features were marred with chemical-burn hash marks on every visible part of his face and body. His window was closed, the curtains drawnas they had been all dayso the only light in the room came from a dim desk lamp. This meant that the light wasn't good for making out colors, but even so, Filia couldn't help but think that his complexion had a bluish cast.

The only feature of Zelgadiss that was unaltered was his singularly expressive and beautiful blue eyes; those had no problem seeing his reflection in her eyes: freak. She was loath to touch him, look at him, even talk to him about his accident. It was a torture he could do without. He wished she would leave.

Her conversation was faltering when the phone rang. Zelgadiss had an extension in his room. His computer was on a desk, his guitar in a case in the clothes closet. Someday he'd get a cell phone, if he ever got a job, if he ever left his room. He made no attempt to answer it, so Filia did.

"Hello? No, idiot, do I sound like Zelgadiss? That's right, I'm no Lina. Real sharp, aren't you? So what do you want?" Just the sound of Xel's voice could set Filia off.

The gray cat brushed up against her ankles, and then finding that it was ignored, the cat jumped up on Zelgadiss' bed. "Hi, Shadow."

"Yeah, well, I'm allergic to cats; I think that's what's making my eyes itch, so I can't stay much longer." Filia frowned, listening to Xel tell her that it was her duty to stay there until her charge was ready to go to bed. And even then, it would be real nice of her to stay and see that he did that and took his medication, which was sitting out on the counter in the adjoining bathroom. Filia moved further away from the bed, turned her back on the subject of the conversation, and said in a lowered voice, "Okay, I know. Lina told me. I'll do what I can, but it's hard. I don't know what to say. He's...like an alien or something. I really think I might start screaming or crying. Don't you dare threaten me!"

She slammed the phone back onto the receiver.

"Who was that?" Zelgadiss asked, knowing full well who it had to be. He had heard Filia saying cutting remarks to Xel, but it was a two-way street. Filia had the unfortunate character flaw of being too serious around Xel, leaving herself open to his ridicule.

Filia stared at him a moment before saying, "Are you really related to that...that..._filth_?"

Zelgadiss felt his defenses surface to fend off her attack on his new friends, but he hadn't the energy to rise to the occasion and argue, so he shrugged, "Xelloss _and _Valgaav, but I have no idea how. We've never climbed the family tree to find out, so to speak. Listen, Filia, I know you...need to get going. There's really no purpose in your staying here any longer. I can take my pills and go to bed without help."

At that moment, he hoped dearly that she would suddenly transform into the girl of his dreams and actually want to stay, but he was a realist. He knew that wasn't going to happen. He didn't want her to remain out of pity, either. When provided with an easy 'out' she would leave, he was certain, but he still held onto a shred of hope.

"Yeah, you're right. I do have stuff to do. Hey, it was really great...seeing you and all. I'll come around again and maybe we can...do something. So... take care and...later!"

The tattered remains of Zel's hope scattered helter-skelter in the dust cloud of her leaving.

And, when he had heard the front door slam shut, his tightly controlled emotions gave way one last time. "I never,_ ever _want to feel like this again," Zelgadiss whimpered.

He resolved never to expose his feelings to another girl again. The pain of rejection was far too great. If he was to survive in this world of exalted beauty as a freak, then he would do it with stoicism. Yes, he thought, from now on he would be indifferent to either pleasure or pain; calm and unflinching under duress as well as free from love, joy, and grief. He would be known, henceforth as Zelgadiss the Stoic.

He was genuinely alone now in his dark-filled room.

* * *

Valgaav rolled the body from the cooler and placed it on the autopsy table. He was experienced with the job and so could transfer even this obese body from the carriage to the table without assistance. Since the comfort of the patient was no longer a consideration, the transfer was accomplished with what might appear to the uninitiated as a rather brutal combination of pulls and shoves, not unlike the way a thug might manhandle a mugging victim.

Xelloss took the body's measurements, noting, "Big guy. Glad your dad invested in this total-body scale."

Together, the two men repositioned the body and Valgaav placed the 'body block' under the cadaver's back. The plastic, brick-like appliance forced the chest to protrude outward and the arms and neck to fall back, thus allowing the maximum exposure of the trunk for the upcoming incisions.

"Ready," Xelloss said.

Valgaav turned on the tape recorder, adjusted the overhead lights, and then checked to make sure that the body named on the autopsy permit matched the toe tag. He read the ID number and name off into the microphone, and then, "Checking for abnormalities of the external body surfaces."

"Hold on," Xelloss stopped him. "The tape is bunching up and...oooh, looks bad for voice recording tonight. At least we got the first one over with before this happened."

"Figures," Valgaav snorted. "They assign us two autopsies tonight and the equipment breaks. We could sure use Zelgadiss, but he's so damned depressed. Think he'll ever wanna come back to work here? It's not a place for guys with problems."

"Well, Filia is visiting him tonight all alone... _in his bedroom_. So, if all goes well, he should be making a recovery very soon. Tell you what, you start making autopsy notes on the diagram and checklist, and I'll give them a call and see how things are going."

Valgaav thought to stop him, thinking that if things were going well Zelgadiss wouldn't want to be disturbed, but then held himself back. Xel would be aware of that too, so he must not have much faith in Filia. Valgaav had to agree; she didn't seem to be very tolerant of imperfection, and Zelgadiss was now an insane artist's work of defective humanity. Valgaav chuckled quietly to himself thinking, "He'd fit right in in Atlas City."

Xelloss returned from his phone call with a creased brow. "She's bolting, the traitor," he said, and then added on a string of unflattering descriptive words.

Valgaav stood back and let Xel take out his animosity on the cadaver. He was highly skilled with the 'bread knife', a large, scalpel-like knife, and this one was Xel's personal prized property. Xel executed the initial Y-shaped incision in the trunk without a moment's hesitation. The arms of the Y extended from the front of each shoulder to the bottom end of the breast bone, and the tail of the Y extend to the pubic bone, making a slight deviation to avoid the navel. The incision was very deep, extending to the rib cage on the chest, and completely through the abdominal wall below that. His usual faint smile had returned.

Valgaav avoided looking into his cousin's eyes. He didn't want to know what was going on inside Xel's head, and if the 'eyes were windows into the soul', then he _really_ didn't want to probe further. "Filia hasn't changed," Valgaav said. "I recognize her from parochial school."

"You don't say," Xel muttered as he set into peeling the skin, muscle, and soft tissues off the chest wall. This he did with deft strokes of the scalpel. "I didn't know you went to a private school."

"Yeah, private, rigid, narrow-minded, and insular in its attitudes toward anyone outside of the Golden Cepheid clan. Even my mom was excluded from many of the clan's activities, and she was just part of the Ancient clan."

"Not Gaav?"

"No, not him. Definite outsider, as you know. Anyway, Filia hasn't changed much since then, except she's studying to be a priestess."

"And she has breasts," Xelloss said coincidentally as he freed the cadaver's chest flap, and then pulled it upward over the body's face. The action exposed the front of the rib cage and the strap muscles of the front of the neck. He made a face reflexively as the smell of human muscle, raw meat, reached his nose. "She doesn't seem to know who you are."

"Aside from the color of my hair, I don't look much like I did. I probably grew two feet, gained a hundred pounds..."

"Not to mention the make up," Xel grinned. "I don't suppose you donned war paint as a little kid."

"Actually, I did."

Further conversation was drowned out when Valgaav turned on the electric saw to open the rib cage. He made a single cut up each side of the front of the rib cage to separate the sternum and the ribs from the rest of the skeleton. Xel used the scalpel to dissect the soft tissues stuck to the back of the chest plate, and then helped Val peel it back, exposing the heart and lungs.

Valgaav paused to record their progress.

"He died at the hospital," Xel read off the report. "I'll check for blood clots, then."

Before disturbing the organs further, he cut open the pericardial sac surrounding the heart, then the pulmonary artery where it exited the heart. He stuck his finger into the hole in the pulmonary artery feeling around for any blood clots which had dislodged from a vein elsewhere in the body, traveled through the heart to the pulmonary artery, lodged there, and caused the man's death. "Bingo! Clotted up! Case closed. Let's wrap this up and leave the nasty part for the morning crew."

Valgaav checked the wall clock, "We have enough time to swab down the place, but no more. Okay. I'll put this away and you start mopping."

* * *

When they arrived home, the first thing they did was check on Zelgadiss in his room.

"Take a look," Valgaav whispered. He stood at the doorway to Zelgadiss' room.

Xel snuck a peek. "Ahhhh, it's a moment enclosed in a hermetically-sealed coffin; a scene reflected in a casket lid, engraved upon a granite headstone," Xel whispered expansively, and then snickered at his own clever turn of phrase.

Both the big, black tom cat and the gray female were sharing the extra warmth snuggled up with the sleeping young man.

"You have spent far too much time in the mortuary," Valgaav muttered as he sauntered off to take his morning ritual shower. "I think I may know how to help him, though."

Later that afternoon, all three young men gathered in Zelgadiss' room. Valgaav set a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich on the bedside stand. "I'm opening the window," he said in a tone that permitted no argument.

"So, tell me," Xel began light heartedly, "You've known Lina the longest. How can I get past her defenses?"

"You want her to like you?" Zelgadiss asked between bites.

"That would be nice too," Xel chuckled.

Zelgadiss frowned, "She's not a quick lay, if that's what you're looking for. She's got a mind of her own, very opinionated, but pretty balanced, and she's able to defend herself."

"Sounds like you lost out to her current boyfriend."

"Not 'lost out', more like I stepped aside. Gourry's a good friend and Lina and I were really more friends than anything else at the time. I recommend that you do the same and not get involved. It's not worth it. Little is."

Valgaav didn't like the sound of that last line; Zelgadiss was falling back into himself. On a whim he asked for some help. "I need to name the kittens."

He plopped and armload of fluff on Zelgadiss' lap. He hadn't budged from his bed since the others had awakened and now six blind kittens snuffled and squirmed over and between his legs. "Whoa...I'll bet your daddy was the black tom."

Most of the kittens were tabby-colored like the mother, one was all black, but one was smaller and nearly tortoiseshell, but just its head and shoulders. Its middle was tabby, while its tail and legs were all black, giving it the look of a patchwork quilt. The tiny kitten was less active than its brothers and sisters. It was that one which attracted Zelgadiss' attention as he gently stroked its soft fur.

"That's the runt," Valgaav told him. "Probably won't survive because it doesn't get much milk."

"That doesn't seem fair."

"Well, that's nature. 'Course, if you were to supplement it with a bottle, it might be okay."

"I could do that," Zelgadiss said with enthusiasm. "Chimera."

"What?" asked Xel.

"I'll name him Chimera because he looks like miss-mash of cat types, and the word also means 'something hoped for but impossible to achieve', like his growing up to adulthood without some assistance."

Xel flashed a quick smile to Valgaav. Their ploy had worked like a dream. Zelgadiss had something depending on him now. He'd have to get up and move.

* * *

And he did. Zelgadiss left his room more often to prepare the kitten's special formula, supplied by the vet along with a specially-designed bottle. He wouldn't leave the house, though. Although the soreness of his damaged skin had mostly dissipated, he was far too uncomfortable with his appearance to be seen by anyone. The number of friends willing to visit him had diminished drastically since the blinds were opened. Without a doubt, his skin was blue with markings, which gave him a marbleized look. Add to that his shock of silver hair and he made an amazingly exotic, but not human, fashion statement. However, it was his cold, uncaring attitude that put his friends off the most.

Valgaav and Xel knew that it was all a facade to protect him from rejection. Around his kitten, for Chimera was to remain in the house as his pet, Zelgadiss was loving, gentle, and all the other qualities locked inside him.

"I guess you guys are my best friends now," he said a few days after all the kittens' eyes opened. He was on the living room floor playing with all the kittens under mother tabby's constant inspection.

"Valgaav and I don't count?"

Zelgadiss colored slightly. "Of course, you know what I mean. You and Valgaav ...are the best."

"That's good to hear. I have an old saying: 'Friends help you move, REAL friends help you move **dead bodies**.'"

Zelgadiss' eye shot upwards. "I can't go back there."

"Yes you can. Vurumagen will take you back in an instant–he said so when Valgaav and I told him we needed you back. You made a real impression on the man, although I can't see how, since you only worked with us. Anyway, the job is there, waiting. Zelgadiss?"

"I guess I could get used to the work. I couldn't come up with a better job scenario: no one to see me but the ones that tell no tales and can't run away screaming, it's dark coming and going to work most the year, and it's as creepy as I am." Zelgadiss smiled inwardly as he imagined the look of horror on Vurumagen's face as he saw him for the first time since the accident. No amount of makeup artistry would cure his defects.

"That's the attitude!" Xel cheered in congratulations to his grumpy friend's decision.

He was rewarded with a coarse remark, which only encouraged Xel to tease further. "Maybe I should dress up too, I mean, what with Valgaav's neo-Egyptian makeup and your alien-machine hybrid look, I just reek of ordinary." He dropped to the floor posed like one of the cats. "Yeow!"

Zelgadiss laughed and kicked him. Xelloss chuckled, "Fighter, huh?" and launched himself at Zelgadiss' midsection.

They were engaged in an impromptu wrestling match, when Valgaav stormed in, "You'll crush the kittens, assholes!"

They hadn't and wouldn't, but it gave Valgaav an excuse to join in, right after he moved the babies back to their box. Xel and Valgaav tied for strongest, but Zelgadiss impressed them with his athleticism and quickness.

"I'm really more track and field," he explained over drinks and dinner. "I have a collection of medals in a box, and I'll likely make the varsity team at the university come fall..." His voice trailed off as he came to realize that that just wasn't going to become reality now, "or not."

"You got into the university. That's not for a few weeks. Why not forget about that until then and prepare for the most exciting summer of your previously bleak existence?" Xel smiled deviously.

"Working with cadavers is exciting? Not my word for it. Oh, and by the way, I fixed that tape recorder you brought in the other day. Someone had shoved part of a surgical glove inside."

"Mr. Athlete and Mr. Fix-it!" Xelloss giggled.

"Thanks," Valgaav broke in. "See, I don't know about the club scene here in Seyruun, but in Atlas City you will be the leading edge in cool."

"Freak shows..." Zelgadiss guessed.

"No, just kids looking for a good time and breaking the molds," Valgaav checked the time. "Time to go. Bring the recorder."

The three young men locked up the house.

Xel drove to the Rubyeye Funeral Home and Mortuary, parked in his usual spot, and led the way to the back entrance.

"You first," he waved Zelgadiss through the door. "Welcome home, and I'll take that tape recorder, thank you."

Valgaav swept past them to check the work chart, "Autopsy, but just the one. We can have time to do some inventory and ordering then. It's a light night. Go ahead, roll 'er in."

Zelgadiss nodded, and then entered the cadaver keep. Only one shrouded body rested on a gurney, which had to be the night's assignment. His eyes swept the interior. He could see his own breath come in ghostly wisps as he muttered, "Sure sign that I'm alive, after all."

But things were not right inside the keep. "Hey, what's this? Hey, Valgaav! Does it say anything there about the body being in a locker?"

Valgaav stepped inside the refrigerated room, and Xel popped in his head asking, "Whaddaya mean? Just get the gurney."

"Probably nothing, I don't know," Zelgadiss demurred. "It's just that the other time I was in here all the wall lockers were shut tightly. Now one's open a notch."

"Good catch, Zelgadiss," Valgaav said, a cloud of visible air forming then dissipating with his words. "Go ahead and open it up."

"It's jammed... Got it! There's some kind of box jammed inside... here." Zelgadiss pulled out a heavy-looking white cardboard box, torn at the edges where it had caught on the steel locker frame.

"What's inside?" Xel asked.

Valgaav lifted the lid. "A plastic bag of something frozen."

Xel took the bag from his hands and carried it out to the marble slab top table where it would stay chilled longer. He carefully untwisted the tie closure, rolled back the wrapping, and sniffed, "Fishy."

Zelgadiss rubbed the icy surface with a gloved finger, exposing a wide-open eye, "Fish. It's a fish. A bag of frozen fish."

Both Valgaav and Xel grew serious.

"These shouldn't be stored in there," Valgaav said.

"We'll put everything back the way it was and see who comes to pick it up. My guess is that they'll come back for it," Xel suggested. "And when they do, we'll nail them."

"It's illegal, then?" Zel asked as he replaced the bag in the carton.

"Oh, yeah. Those lockers are to stop the spread of disease, so foodstuffs obviously have no place there." Valgaav jammed the box back into the locker and shut it partway as before.

Zel nodded at Val's words, "Yeah, like you warned me not to leave my lunch in there. Shhh, I hear someone at the back steps."

"Super-hearing, eh?" Xel smiled. He skipped out of the cooler for a second then dipped back in. "He's right! Someone's coming. Better hide."

Zelgadiss grabbed Valgaav's arm, "Put me in one of those lower lockers."

"Sure?" He asked, but went along with the idea. "Careful, we don't know who it is and some folks dealing in the 'dismal trade' are unscrupulous."

"Hurry!" Xelloss urged them.

Valgaav rolled Zelgadiss back into the wall, leaving the door ajar. He showed Zelgadiss how to disengage the lock from the inside should it slam shut, and then he and Xel scrambled on the two empty gurneys and pulled the folded sheets to cover them completely.

They didn't have long to wait.

Two voices and pairs of footfalls could be heard from the outer room, one of the pair an angry-sounding woman scolding the other in a hushed voice. There was a click from within the cadaver keep.

"You're late. Now be quiet and go outside and hide. Another crew should be here anytime."

More footsteps and then a sigh, "Good, empty. The screw-ups are late. Figures."

Xel whispered to Valgaav whose gurney was only inches away, "She just call us _screw-ups_?" He snapped his mouth shut when the woman started talking again, her voice coming closer.

"Damn, he even left the door to the keep open! And he thinks he's so clever."

They could hear her enter the keep and tug on the locker door. "Damned box..." her voice dried in her throat. She was not alone.

Slowly she swiveled her head, to see one of the steel doors rolling open on its own. An unearthly apparition rose out of the drawer.

"EEEE!" she screamed.

"_Eris?_" Zelgadiss gasped aloud. He was a bit rattled by her appearance as well.

She was shaking so hard the box slipped out of her grasp, the plastic bag falling heavily to the cement floor. "Eh...whooo? Oh, dear gods! Zelgadiss!" The color returned to her face as she attempted to compose herself. "I didn't recognize you...at first. I hadn't seen you since...the accident. Um... What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you," he muttered.

"In fact, _I _will!" Xel piped up and he and Valgaav both threw back their shrouds and sat up.

Eris shrieked again. "Gods no! What are you doing?"

"Oh, just fishing around," Xel grinned, then baited her some more. "Fishing for clues, maybe?"

Her eyes drifted down to the floor. "You already looked. Well, I couldn't tell you what was in the carton. It wasn't my business," she said with slightly stiff politeness, and not a great deal of truth.

Xelloss snorted and began giggling, "Oh, Eris, Eris, Eris... Don't ever go into acting. You are terrible."

Eris straightened and tried a different approach, explaining her operation and pleading her case.

"The Cepheid people control the fish cartel and have been raising the rates steadily for months. You know, or you would if you were actually practicing White Shriners..."

"Hey, I've been practicing for years and I _just _can't get it _right_," Xel mock-sniffled.

"She said 'White Shriners' not 'whiners'," Valgaav pointed out.

"He's already plenty good at whining. Go on," Zelgadiss nudged.

"White Shrine custom is to eat only fish on Wednesdays," Eris continued.

"That's a lot of fish!" Xel said in mock surprise to Valgaav. "A shit-load of fish."

"That's a fish-load of shit," Valgaav, who didn't like fish or the custom, corrected him.

"A lot of fish, that's right," Eris agreed irritably. "And with sharply rising prices it's cutting into to fishmonger's profits. There's only so much the customers can pay, the poorer ones."

"Fish-monger, like a fish-peddler or a fish-pitcher, that's funny. Do you think they have fishwives?" Xel asked with a pleased look on his face.

"Of course they do," Eris snapped. "My point is: by utilizing our surplus storage in the 'keep' I am helping the people of the White Shrine combat the Cepheid cartel. It's only one merchant, but that's how a revolution begins, one..."

"...One fishmonger at a time. Speaking of loads of crap," Zelgadiss turned to his two friends for support. "How can any of you believe this? This is an age of reason and science! Even the Renaissance had more enlightenment than her argument!"

"Not the Cepheid-led Inquisition. They burned anyone whose belief differed from theirs," Xel noted.

"Not _anyone_," Valgaav corrected pedantically. "Only those who had been baptized into the Golden Cepheid clan and then reverted to heresy. Hey, I am not condoning it! I only correct a misstatement."

Xel rolled his eyes and Valgaav gave him the finger.

"You aren't listening to me!" Eris shouted. She had a customer outside waiting in the bushes for his box of slowly thawing fish.

"Oh, yes we are, and that's the problem. We not only listen, we reason, and we deduct. And in the final analysis... We don't believe you, and even if we did, we don't give a coffin's comfort why you are breaking the law and putting our family's business in jeopardy. So, I suggest you give your huckster outside his box and tell him the gig's up, baby." Xelloss stood up and revealed the tape recorder which had been hiding beneath his sheet. "I got it all down on tape."

Her face brightened, "Ha! It's broken, you lame brained idiot! I broke it days ago."

He grinned and shook his head, "Sorry to burst your gill-expressed bubble, but Zelgadiss, the man of many skills, fixed it." He rewound a few seconds, punched the play button, and smiled with satisfaction as Eris' damning last words repeated for all to hear.

"To quote my mother: 'Gardeners, despite their sensitivity to beauty and respect for nature, all resort to murder and mayhem with steel-willed cunning when besot by weeds and predators.'" Xel's smile turned malicious. "You just never know. Watch your back, Miss Eris, because you never know about some people. I however, I am an accommodating man, and can be convinced."

Eris shot him a hopeful look, then remembering that Zelgadiss was in the room, she glanced briefly at him and then down and away.

At that moment Zelgadiss saw both people in another light. Xelloss suddenly seemed older, old enough to be arranging trysts with the woman his grandfather was dating, albeit a much younger woman than his grandfather should be dating. Eris seemed darker, seeped in mysterious goings-on.

"The fish is defrosting," she said simply.

"Go home. I know how to get in touch," Xelloss said lightly. "But don't let us catch you using this place for illegal activities again!" he added with an annoying finger waggle as if he were speaking to an errant child.

She rushed out the back entrance box in hand.

"We got work to do," Valgaav growled, bringing them back to reality.

End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 6


	7. Community Services

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER SEVEN **– Community Services –

"We will provide, at no charge, licensed funeral directors to address organizations,schools, or groups on the topic of funeral service or related subject matter."

* * *

_Warning: Autopsy details follow._

* * *

"Ever notice how you can never put anything back in a box the way it came?" Xel asked with his weird sense of amusement as Eris crushed, shoved, and jam-packed the now dripping plastic bag of partially thawed fish back into the wobbly carton and slammed on the lid.

She didn't bother to answer him; instead she turned one last time to Zelgadiss and said, "I thought your grandfather made you quit working here."

"He did, but now I'm back," Zelgadiss said dryly.

Xel thought more needed to be said, so he provided the additional material, "Yes, you see, the job Rezo got him had its drawbacks. It didn't work out for him, you might say. It gave him the blues." Xel appeared melancholy a moment, and then broke into a smile. "So, you can tell him for Zelgadiss that he quits, and not in a nice way. And now that he doesn't live with him anymore, he can't tell him what to do. It's his life to live, his way."

"Rezo won't permit it," Eris snapped back, and then stared at the younger man. "Zelgadiss, you should tell your grandfather yourself. He is a changed man."

"So am I." Zelgadiss stepped away. "Goodbye, Eris. Like Valgaav says, we have work to do."

Valgaav had, in fact, already started preparing for the night's autopsy. "Put on your gloves and mask and watch what we do."

Eris left without another word, her future resting on Xelloss' goodwill.

* * *

"Note the blood seeping under the skin here and here," Valgaav pointed out as the autopsy was underway. "Not normal."

Zelgadiss watched as Valgaav and Xelloss reduced the cadaver to a wide-open cavity. Aside from observing, his job was to clean up blood spills and follow any other directions.

"This is not unlike field-dressing a deer, if you've ever done that," Valgaav explained, "Except we have to take samples for slides and further testing. The note appended to the work order says this is a court case so anything we can tell them we will."

The dissection began at the neck and proceeded downward, eventually removing all the organs of the trunk in one chunk. Xel identified the arteries in the neck and upper chest, tied a long string to each and then cut them off, leaving the ties so that Vurumagen, who was most likely the one doing the embalming in the morning, could more easily find the arteries for injection of the embalming fluids.

Xel next detached the larynx and esophagus with a swift cut. He yanked the larynx and trachea downward and adroitly used his personal blade to free up the remainder of the chest organs from their attachment at the spine. A couple deft moves and the diaphragm was cut away from the body wall, after which the abdominal organs were pulled out and down. All of the organs remained attached to the body only by the pelvic ligaments, bladder, and rectum. With a single slash with the blade, Xel severed this last connection, and all of the organs were freed in one mass.

"Here you go," Xel said, passing the organ collection to Valgaav.

"I'm going to deal with this in a minute," Valgaav told them as he dumped the organs on the dissecting table mounted over the body's legs. "Watch what Xel does with the brain."

"First, I have to elevate the head so that it's like on a stiff pillow. Here, pull the body block out from under the back," Xel nudged the bewildered Zelgadiss to action. "Yeah, _that_ plastic block. Okay, now place it under the back of the head. Thanks Zelgadiss. Now, I apply my magic touch..."

Xel cut from behind one ear, over the crown of the head, to behind the other ear with a single swipe of his trusty blade. Like with the trunk incisions, it was deep, all the way to the skull. Dividing the skin and soft tissues into a front flap and a rear flap, he tugged hard to force the front flap forward over the body's face, exposing the top and front of the skull.

"This takes some strength," Xel grunted.

Zelgadiss winced. "Uh, yeah. Like being 'scalped'."

One more backward tug at the back flap of skin over the nape of the neck, and he had exposed the whole top hemisphere of the skull. "Right. See that electric saw over there? Yeah, I need it next. It's called a Stryker saw for no good reason. Thanks."

Xel turned on the saw, the buzzing sound bothering Zelgadiss' hyper-sensitive hearing so much that it made him wince, and cut around the equator of the cranium. He shut it off and said, "This cut is tricky. It has to be deep enough to cut all the way through the skull, but not so deep that the brain is cut. I'll let you practice on less important cases, okay?"

Zelgadiss nodded. It might take some skill, but nothing he couldn't handle.

"See how the cut is not totally straight but has a notch here so that the skull top won't slide off the bottom half of the skull after everything is sewn back up," Valgaav pointed out.

Zelgadiss was impressed. "I hadn't even noticed, you did that so fast, Xel."

Xel smiled, and then slowly lifted off the skull top, drawing out the odd combination of a sucking sound and the sound of rubbing two halves of a coconut. "Here, you can hold onto that for me."

Zelgadiss took the offering gingerly and returned Xel's smile with a smirk of his own, "Oh, thanks."

He examined the bone fragment in his hand, turning in back and forth, noticing that the outer membrane coverings of the brain coated the inside of the skull top. He smiled to find that he felt a healthy detachment to the entire proceedings this time. He hadn't felt queasy at all, yet. Work was also distracting him from his miserable self-absorption. He hadn't thought about his own problems; his abortive relationship with Filia, in particular, had been forgotten for an entire hour.

Xel cleared his throat to get Zelgadiss' attention off the piece of skull_ in_ his hand and on the task _at_ hand. "Ahem! Okay, so the top of the brain is now fully exposed. After the chore of getting to it, it's a relatively easy matter to get the brain out. There are no tough ligaments that hold the brain in, so really all that needs to be done is to cut the spinal cord. See? Presto! The brain is then easily lifted out."

Valgaav pointed Zelgadiss in the direction of the wall of jars, "Get one from the top with the blank labels and mark the outside with the code off the toe tag and bring it here."

"What's in it?" Zelgadiss asked as he unscrewed the lid.

"Formalin," Valgaav said while Xelloss carefully hung the soft brain in the jar with a string support, "which is a 10 solution of formaldehyde gas in buffered water. Since we have only one of these to do tonight, we'll setup more specimen jars and I'll show you how to measure right and where the supplies are stored."

Xel went on, "Since the brain is very soft and easily deformable, it will hang in the jar for a couple weeks. Formaldehyde 'fixes' the tissue, not only preserving it from decay, but also causing it to become much firmer and easier to handle without messing it up."

"What's with the string?"

"That's to prevent it from having a flattened side from lying in the bottom of the jar because the brain is heavier than water and therefore sinks."

"Now for the worst part," Valgaav sighed audibly. "It's going to start getting messy and smelly, so, you know, be aware of that."

At the dissection table, Valgaav first isolated the esophagus from the rest of the chest organs. He picked up a pair of scissors and cut the chest organs away from the abdominal organs and esophagus. As he separated the lungs from the heart and trachea, Xel stepped in. "Let me?"

"Sure." Valgaav stepped aside, explaining to Zelgadiss, "He wants to show off his knife skills."

"Well, I _am_ good." Xel quickly recorded the lungs' weight, then sliced it like loaves of bread into sections about one centimeter thick using his foot-long, sharp knife in only a few seconds elapsed time.

"I'm _further_ impressed," Zelgadiss said. He stepped closer to observe Xel's technique, imagining if he could perfect the use of his knife, someday. "Remind me to let you cut the roast."

"We're having a roast tonight...er...when we get home?" Xel looked pleased.

"Yeah, it's the only thing I can cook, that and baked potatoes and a salad." Zelgadiss blushed at the attention he was drawing from his two friends all of a sudden.

"Sounds good to me," Xel said. "I nominate you our in-house cook."

"I second it," Valgaav chuckled. "We're mostly can, box, frozen, and take-out kind of cooks. Real food will be a nice change."

"And you'll be surprised at how hungry you'll be after this, too."

Zelgadiss regarded Xelloss with a skeptical eye. "I'll be surprised if I have any appetite left."

"Let's get this job done with," Valgaav requested. As much as he liked his older cousin, he found that Xel tried his patience much of the time.

He weighed the heart and then opened it along the pathway of normal blood flow using the scissors. "Xel prefers to use the bread knife because, while it takes more skill and care, it is much faster and gives more attractive cut edges than when scissors are used, but I'm doing it my way tonight."

He moved quickly, opening the larynx and trachea longitudinally from the rear and then examined the interior. All the while he was marking the chart with notes, recording his findings as he went along. "Nothing notable yet. I'm dissecting the thyroid gland away from the trachea with scissors," he murmured.

Zel watched him weigh the plump gland and cut it into thin slices.

"Sometimes the parathyroid glands are easy to find, other times impossible," Xel noted. "I keep thinking we had something going on this weekend, starting in the evening. Any clues?"

Valgaav turned over the abdominal organ bloc, so that the back side was up. "The adrenal glands are located in the fatty tissue over the kidneys and are difficult to find. Got them. Here, you can remove and weigh them. We got that audition to go to, for one."

"That's right! Thanks to your little girlfriend," Xel muttered under his breath.

"She's not my girlfriend. Hardly know her."

"You're being defensive, which is a sure sign of something going on," Xel continued to tease.

"What girl's that?" Zelgadiss wanted to know.

Xel opened his mouth, but one glare from his cousin and he edited his comment, "I guess...that's a secret."

Valgaav felt warmth creep up his neck, "It's no secret. Amelia arranged an audition for us for a local play. She's trying to get us jobs. Damn, I wish we'd never started that stupid lie."

Zelgadiss did his math and came up with the disturbing conclusion that Xel thought Valgaav liked Amelia. He wondered if he should warn Valgaav not to feel too bad if she didn't feel the same way. Amelia had a crush on him—or not. Zelgadiss felt a tightening in his chest as he recalled her horrified stare and whispered words to Lina when she first saw his new face: "He's so scary and suspicious looking!"

No, he decided that he no longer stood in anybody's way to go for the girl of their choice. He was no longer going to be a player. No one would ever want to touch him. His eyes came back into focus when Xel tapped him on the shoulder while waving his long knife in the air under his nose.

"The best of us," Xel said with a smirky smile, "are able to make every cut with one long slicing action. To saw back and forth with the blade leaves irregularities on the cut surface, which are often distracting on specimen photographs. So the idea is to use an extremely sharp, long blade that can get through a 2000-gram liver in one graceful slice. This is my very own blade which I maintain myself and will let no one else use."

Valgaav snorted at Zelgadiss' look of disbelief, "Just watch when he leaves tonight. He typically carries it around in a leather sheath in his briefcase."

The knife was dangerous enough looking, but seemed average to Zelgadiss until he noticed that it was adorned with a red stone at the hilt. He watched Xel's work with fascination. He imagined some attacker entering their workroom at night and then Xelloss, who was not a particularly tough or strong looking individual, would defend them all with one desperate but skillful slash of the bread knife, almost cutting the assailant in half. He shuddered.

"You okay?" Valgaav asked him.

Zelgadiss nodded and watched in silence as Xel carved the liver; his slicing with the bread knife making amazingly delicate cuts for its long, unwieldy-looking blade.

"What comes next," Valgaav told Zelgadiss, "is we strip the intestines from the mesentery using scissors..."

"The pussy method," Xel inserted.

"... or bread knife..."

"The macho method," Xel insisted.

Valgaav carried the tangle of intestines to the sink where he opened them under running water so that all the feces and undigested food were cleaned out.

"As one might imagine, this step is extremely malodorous," Xel added by way of unnecessary commentary.

"Gods...no kidding," Zelgadiss gagged. The material in the sink smelled like a pleasant combination of crap and puke. It was actually so terrible that Zelgadiss worried that he would be sick.

"Yeah, talk about 'shit work'," Xel laughed.

Valgaav continued to wash off the internal surface of the bowel, and then carried it back to the dissecting tray where he examined it and made a few notes. "Next time, Zelgadiss gets to 'run the gut,' beginner's work."

Zelgadiss had his reflexes under control and nodded. "Fine. I'm turning up the fan."

The stomach was opened along its greater curvature.

"More internal bleeding," Valgaav muttered. "Write than down for me."

"We are lucky tonight," Xel commented as he scribbled the note.

"We are?" Zelgadiss asked while holding his nose. The smell of gastric acid would prove to be unforgettable.

Valgaav weighed it and again took slices for examination. "He means that the patient hadn't eaten solid food in a while. If he had, the contents of the stomach would have discouraged you from eating any stews or soups for a long time."

The pancreas was removed from the duodenum, weighed, sliced, and examined. The duodenum was opened longitudinally, washed out, and examined internally. The esophagus was similarly treated with dispatch.

"These are the kidneys," Valgaav said as he removed, weighed, halved lengthwise, and examined the solid organs. "This is the urinary bladder." And he repeated the procedure.

"If this were a female patient, the ovaries and uterus would be removed, cut in half, and examined. Since it's a male, the testes are checked and if they are enlarged, as they are in this case, it's necessary to remove them. So I pull'em up into the abdomen by traction on the spermatic cord, cut them off, halve them, and prepare them for examination."

"Ouch," Zelgadiss hissed with a sharp intake of air.

"Almost done," Xel reassured him.

"The aorta and its major abdominal branches get opened longitudinally and examined," Valgaav said.

"Uh, this place is a mess," Zelgadiss said. "Guess I'd better get cracking."

Toward the end of the autopsy procedure, the room was not a pretty sight. Valgaav wasn't particularly neat when he worked the dissection area.

"It's a legend that old-time pathologists were so neat that they'd perform the entire procedure in a tux right before an evening at the opera. Pathologists are noted for their love of classical music and fine art," Xel told him as he helped pull out a few sponges for Zelgadiss. "As you can see, the _modern_ prosector, which I guess is the closest title Valgaav might have, is not that refined."

The autopsy table around the patient was covered with blood, and some had dripped onto the floor.

While trying to ignore Xel as best he could, Valgaav focused on the task at hand, but they were right—it was getting foul. "We try to keep blood on the floor to a minimum so no one slips and falls," Valgaav said as he tore off a handful of paper towels, dropped them on the floor, and rubbed at the floor with his shoe.

The hanging meat scales used to weigh the organs were covered and dripping with blood. The pen Valgaav had used to write organ weights on the clipboard was also smeared with blood, as was the clipboard itself, which was an especially unappetizing juxtaposition.

However, none of it bothered Valgaav enough to call for a cleaning session. "Yeah, you can get to that in a minute, but first I wanna show you what happens to all the organ samples I've taken. The samples I took of most of the organs are for later microscopic examination, as you probably figured. Sections of the organs, optimally about three millimeters in thickness, get cut and placed in labeled plastic cassettes. What I'm doing here now is placing the cassettes in small jars of formalin for fixation. Before we go tonight, we'll 'process' them all in a machine overnight. That removes all the water from the specimens and replaces it with paraffin wax. See, first we'll take out the 'runs' from the morning, put them on the 'ready' shelf, and then take ours and place them like so and turn it on. That's that. Permanent microscopic sections can be cut from the paraffin sections, mounted on glass slides, stained, cover-slipped, and examined microscopically. We don't do that here. If the case wants all that done, we send off our jars and let the investigative teams have them. I mean, we _can,_ but they gotta verify our work anyway so why bother? I'm no pathologist, but Xel graduated as one."

That was news to Zelgadiss, and it meant that Xel was at least 22 years old.

"What do you do with the other stuff?" Zelgadiss asked. He scanned the piles of 'guts' and parts lying about in horror that he might be expected to 'do' something about them.

"We have more 'save jars' for additional small slices of the major organs, typically these one-quart or the one-pint jars filled with formalin. That includes the brain. We don't dissect it here at all. We keep the save jar for a variable length of time, but at least until the case is 'signed out,' which is when the final written report is prepared. In the case of those bodies labeled 'cc' for 'court case', we keep them until an investigating officer picks them up. We usually just bag all the tissues that need disposed of and dump them in the tub over there marked 'for incineration.' It's in the basement."

"Bag, tub, basement," Zelgadiss intoned to keep his own sanity intact.

"I think mother's place just dumps the leftovers back into the empty cavity to help fill it back up," Xel said.

"That's because you don't deal with the Cepheid people like we do. Everything's gotta be done to their standards or they won't do business with you."

Zelgadiss said, "But this is the White Shrine capital. What business is it of the Cepheid people to tell the rest how to run things?"

"They have some big financial backers, that's why," Valgaav answered him.

"Gaav wants their bucks. He doesn't have to bend to their will, but then he'd lose the money he needs so much for his wild and crazy activities, right Valgaav?" Xel smiled with an unreadable look.

"Something like that," Valgaav said, looking at Zelgadiss. "Dad travels most the time, although I expect him home anytime. Not that he'll stay with us; he'll just stop in to say hello and probably meet you."

"So what do we do with...the body?" Zelgadiss asked. He wasn't even going to begin to agonize about a visit from Gaav yet.

"Let's close it up!" Xel chortled at his friend's anxious expression. "You didn't think we were just going to leave it like this tonight?"

Indeed, the body was now an empty shell, with no larynx, chest organs, abdominal organs, pelvic organs, or brain. The front of the rib cage was also missing. The scalp was pulled down over the face, and the whole top of the head was gone.

"The first one I saw was like this," Zelgadiss said in his defense.

"That's because the earlier shift is made up of a bunch of worthless morons," Xel told him as he started replacing the top of the skull and pulling the scalp back over. "Hand me the twine, my good man," Xel asked while pointing out the ball of thick twine and the still-bloody scissors. "Wipe those off too, while you're at it."

He threaded a fat needle and expertly sewed up the wound using the type of stitch used to cover baseballs, leaving a line going from behind the ears over the back of the skull, so that when the head rested on a pillow in the casket, the wound would not be visible. "I just know that I'm forgetting something happening later today or...I don't know."

Zelgadiss helped place the chest plate back over the chest, and then Xel sewed the body wall, again with baseball stitches, so that the final wound resembled a 'Y'.

"Nothing you told me about," Valgaav assured him.

"Me neither. Ummm, the whole trunk is collapsed, especially the chest since the chest plate was not reattached to the ribs," Zelgadiss pointed out. "It's not right."

Xel knew that his lack of seriousness, especially while on the job, irked his cousin. He enjoyed tormenting Valgaav. He thought, maybe, that it was because Valgaav was like the younger brother he had never had. A funny thought came to mind, his eyes twinkled with amusement, and he asked, "Remember how I asked earlier how it was that you couldn't put anything back in a box the way it came?"

Zelgadiss smiled. He noticed that Xel traded off being the 'source of all knowledge' with being the comedian and that Valgaav put up with him, just barely. Zel guessed that Xelloss had pushed him too far tonight with one too many of his amusing anecdotes.

"That's not what he means, dipwad," Valgaav snorted at him. "Okay, on the work order papers it doesn't say if the body is to be embalmed or not, so we stitch it closed. The family may not have decided what to do; otherwise we could wash it down and stuff the body cavity with filler to re-expand the body to roughly normal contours. Saves time, if we know," Valgaav said. "Okay, Zelgadiss, get the hose and sponge there and clean it all off. Cover it with the sheet and roll it into the keep."

He and Xel were labeling and moving specimen jars when Zelgadiss returned. He automatically wiped down all the surfaces with a disinfectant, and cleaned up the autopsy suite with a mop and bucket. Valgaav finished up the notes concerning his findings.

"Normally we can put away one of these babies in under two hours, assuming it's a fairly straightforward case we're not interrupted," Xel said with pride.

"What makes one complicated?"

"Oh, detailed explorations and special dissections like exploring the bile ducts, removing the eyes, or spinal cord. Gods, we had one take us nearly four hours once, didn't we Valgaav?"

"I try to forget."

"What do I do with these?" Zelgadiss indicated the sink of instruments: a scalpel, the bread knife, and scissors.

"Rinse them off, then use the pick-ups to put them in the tray with disinfectant."

"Pick-ups? You mean 'forceps'?"

"Only scriptwriters say 'forceps'," Valgaav replied, finally breaking a smile.

"Right, you actor-types should know," Zelgadiss retorted.

"Yeah, okay, so we have time to teach you how to make up specimen jars and stuff."

While the three of them worked, Zelgadiss began to speculate about his life, the job, and about what they had just done. He hadn't thought about his drastically changed appearance for half an hour at least. This was certainly a place for a freaky guy like him to be hidden away from curious eyes. So, it seemed he had fallen into a new home, job, and friends– what amounted to a new life, and the summer wasn't even halfway over yet. It was smelly and ugly work at times, but with guys like these to be with it was okay and maybe he could solve a mystery or two? Which reminded him of the work they had just completed...

"So, what you think killed that guy?" he asked.

"Well, we know what didn't, right?" Xel asked in return. "No knife or gun shot wounds, bruises, lacerations, or anything like that."

"Right."

"The heart looked okay, no arterial blockages, nothing obvious on any of the intact organs. What do you think, Valgaav?"

"Tests will tell. From what I can figure from the few scraps of information attached here by the hospital, it's a case against a doctor proving the patient got improper treatment. Ah...it mentions he had heart problems and was given coumadin."

"Can I use the computer over there?" Zelgadiss asked.

"Sure," said and showed him how to power it up.

In a few minutes, Zelgadiss had some information for them. "Hey, this is interesting. Listen: 'Drugs that are helpful in therapeutic doses may be deadly when taken in excess. For example, coumadin is a beta-blocker used to calm and slow the heart , and it's often thought of as a blood thinner used to prevent blood clots. Drug interaction is another risk. If you're using the blood thinner coumadin, combining it with aspirin or Tylenol can lead to an increased risk of bleeding. Over-dosage effects, such as too much anticoagulant, producing bleeding into the skin, or a mixture of too much aspirin with Coumadin, leading to a dose-related rash, are seen. Hair loss as a result of heparin or Coumadin is also seen.'"

"So, the doctor may have made a mistake and over-prescribed for this guy or not told him to avoid aspirins or something. The family may have a case. The samples we took will be able to determine the amount of that stuff in him," Valgaav said.

"We noticed the internal bleeding, but who could tell about the hair with a bald guy?" Xel pondered the possibilities. "Hold on...go back...What's that about rat poison?"

Zel checked the search items and discovered one about dogs dying from eating rat poison containing coumadin. "You're right. It is the active ingredient in many rat poisons and may cause heavy bleeding and death if too much is taken. It's been around a long time. 'In the early 20th century, bis-hydroxycoumarin was discovered after livestock had eaten spoiled sweet clover and died of a hemorrhagic disease. Although it is no longer is used primarily as a rodenticide, several long-acting coumarin derivatives are used for this purpose and can produce profound and prolonged anticoagulation.'"

"Maybe someone fed him rat poison to kill him knowing that it might be masked by his medical condition?" Xel grinned. "Look up how we can test for that poison!"

Valgaav interrupted, "That would be in this text up here, and not on the internet." He hauled down an over-sized book and spent a few minutes thumbing through it. "It's not too hard. You any good in high school chemistry, Zelgadiss?"

"Yeah, I'm going to college to major in...that is, Rezo wanted me to study it in college."

Xelloss pushed Zelgadiss at the book while Valgaav dove for the Bunsen burner and one of his specimen jars. "It starts with the liver..."

Less than an hour later, Zelgadiss was delighted to be able to prove his worth to his two friends after feeling like the useless observer all night. "Okay, so it says if this dissolves in alcohol and turns pink, it was the rat poison."

"Drink up!" Xel giggled as he doused the beaker's contents with the alcohol.

"Pink it is!" they all cheered.

Valgaav was especially pleased to be able to record something of value on the 'check-out form' and Zelgadiss felt better about himself than he had since his accident. There was hope for him somehow.

"Can we leave now?" Xel sighed. He could only tolerate waiting for the others to complete their tedious work a short time.

Valgaav was ripping off his coveralls by way of an answer. "So how long will it take to get that roast ready?"

"If the timer on the oven worked right, about twenty minutes for me to get everything on the table," Zelgadiss was saying as he dried his hands and discarded his coveralls to the 'dirty' bag, but he was talking to an empty room. Xel and Valgaav were already in the car and pulling up outside the building.

"Hey!" Xel shouted out his window. "Hurry up with that door!"

"How did you get out so fast? It's like you two just transported instantly to out here!"

"Magic," Xel grinned.

* * *

"I'll get it!" Xel scooted to the front door, dragging a t-shirt over his head as he went.

"I brought the DVD's and all that," Lina paused, looking over the young man's unkempt hair and sleepy eyes. "You forgot, didn't ya?"

Xelloss hunted through his scattered wits faster than a search engine in order to prove her wrong. "Ahhh..." then his face relaxed into its familiar smile, "Anime club, right? Tonight?"

"That's right. So, you have snacks already? I smell something good, what is it?"

"Good? Oh, that would be Zelgadiss' roast. He made a terrific dinner, which we had before you had breakfast. But, say, ah... I do need to go get a few more things, would you like to go with me and..."

"Pick them out? Sure would! That way I'll be sure you get enough, and we don't have much time. Oh, hi Zelly. Been up long?" Lina grinned at the closed-eyed boy. She still couldn't get over how different he looked, although _she _thought the change was exhilaratingly interesting.

"Lina? Damnit, I knew I heard your voice but I thought I was having a bad dream," he quipped in return.

"Lina and I are going to pick out the snacks for anime club," Xel said, "So make sure Valgaav is dressed when he comes out, okay? Oh, and answer the door!" The last part he yelled as he and Lina swept down the walkway to the garage where his car was safely parked.

Zelgadiss had no time to argue; they were gone. He had been in hiding from everyone except for his two roommates, Lina, Gourry (once), Amelia, and Filia's aborted visit. He had no idea who might come through the door, and he dreaded it. "Valgaav! Val! You have to get up!" he yelled and banged on the bedroom door.

"Go'way."

"No, people are coming and you have to get dressed. Anime club!"

Val lurched to the door and whipped it open, "Enemy club? What kinda f—ing thing are you talking about? I don't gotta get up for two more hours, dipshit!"

"It's almost five o-clock, asshole, so get up and answer the door."

"You answer the door. I ain't your servant. You got two legs and arms just like me, only mine are going back to bed and yours aren't." And with that final thought, Valgaav slammed shut his door.

"But, but... what if it's Amelia? I don't know, I think blue's her favorite color, but other than that... What if she figures it's just me and her here?" Zelgadiss waited by the door.

Now, Zel only had hints that Valgaav might like Amelia, and had neglected to notice that his two friends possibly found one another mutually attractive. He had been too busy schmoozing with Filia that night at the party. Since then he hadn't noticed anything of the world around him but him and his problems, so what he had said was meant to be centered on his fear that she might bolt at the sight of 'Alien Zel'.

Valgaav, on the other hand thought Zelgadiss was trying egg him on, that he had figured Val might like her and that Zel having lost Filia might move on Amelia next. Valgaav wasn't at all sure how he felt about that, but he had no sense of humor concerning Amelia. Slowly the door opened. "You better be outta my way when I come out there," he growled.

Zelgadiss didn't know what he had said to anger the guy, but deciding that it was the waking him up part, he brushed it off as 'bad mood' and ambled off.

* * *

Meanwhile, Lina and Xelloss were having a great time loading up a grocery cart with goodies and exchanging 'hit points', as Lina called numbers of times they connected on something.

"Don't you just hate it when people behind you in a supermarket line dash ahead of you to a counter just opening up?" Xelloss asked as something similar was happening to them.

"Hey, you! Yeah, you in the polka dot shirt. We were, like, next in line, not you. See? Yeah, I'm still talking to you, Bub. We are in the front and you, being behind us, were able to jump over the little chain and get to the next line before us, but unless you want me to clean your clock, you'd better move aside!"

Lina made enough of a commotion to embarrass the man to the point that he fell back to the end of the longest line there was.

"What was that you were saying?" she asked Xelloss. "Oh, yeah..." She turned her ruby gaze upon the folks wheeling their cart behind her. "And I go ballistic when the people behind you in the supermarket run their cart into the back of your ankle."

The cart behind them rolled to another checkout counter.

"Can I ask you a question?" the cashier asked her.

"Oh, and don'tcha hate it when people ask 'Can I ask you a question?' I mean, didn't they just do that?"

Xelloss, who was getting into the moment, laughed, "Yes! They must be related to the people who point at their wrist while asking for the time."

Lina told the cashier that she didn't care what kind of bag he put the groceries in as long as they went into something fast.

And the easy conversation didn't stop there. On the drive back to his house, Xelloss wondered, "Have you ever noticed that the tiny red string on the Band-Aid wrapper never works for you, or is that just me?"

"No, it's there just to torment you into adding a paper cut to whatever other mess you're trying to squelch the blood flow from. Hey! What's that idiot honking his horn for? Doesn't he see the kid in the crosswalk, or does he think we oughta just run him down so as to accommodate his heavy-footedness?"

"I don't think that's a word... 'heavy-foot-ed-ness', though I could be wrong. But in any case, yes, that's a bother. Oh, yeah and there's always a car riding your tail when you're slowing down to find an address, too."

Lina laughed, "Yeah, I guess we run into the same imbeciles even in our different circles."

"Well, that or we are rather special; kinda like the two ice cubes that won't pop out of the tray."

Lina looked to see if he was being serious but couldn't tell because he usually wore an innocuous-looking smile. She decided that he was and twisted his words to fit along the same lines as their previous ones, and agreed, "That's another one of life's irritations: There are always one or two ice cubes that get stuck and you have to crack them up or bang on them or something to get them out of the tray."

"Sometimes it's more trouble than it's worth," he said meaningfully, "and sometimes it's not."

"You are not your typical actor-type, you know?" Lina narrowed her eyes to really get a good look at him in profile. He was really very attractive and that made her uncomfortable suddenly.

"Oh? Well, you are not your typical medieval sorceress adventurer, either."

"What? I'm not one at all, but I gotta say that sounds pretty cool. Oh, I get it...that's what you meant, huh? Does that mean you're not really an actor? I'm...ah...going to college in fall, what ever that makes me."

"I see. And yes, I'm not much of an actor, but I was right about you."

"Xelloss...?"

"Call me Xel."

"Xelloss, you are one strange guy."

"Ah, I'll take that as a compliment, coming from the other ice cube holding onto her place in the tray against all odds." He pressed the automatic garage door opener, wheeled the BMW into its allotted space, and turned off the engine.

A bare light bulb overhanging the step up into the house was all the illumination they had. Lina looked over to see that Xelloss was watching her. "What?"

He turned to face her partway, resting one arm on the back of his seat and the other across the steering wheel. "I would really like to kiss you, Lina, but I feel that I must warn you first."

That caught her off guard. She wasn't sure how to respond, so she asked with caution, "Warn me about what?"

"About me," he lowered his voice to a soft purr and moved closer to her. "Once I start, I might not be able to stop."

"Start what? You think I'm gonna buy a line like that? What makes you think I want to have you within an inch of my person, huh? I already got a ... ah..." but Lina was unable to articulate 'boyfriend.' Was Gourry actually that to her? She didn't know.

"Because you don't want to melt before we have a chance."

"You still working that ice cube metaphor?" There was a note of relief in her voice.

"Are you still fighting for the upper hand?"

He was so close by that she could feel his body's warmth added to her own and to the already warm day's, causing her to become testy. "Yes, I mean... no. I'm _always_ on top."

"That's all I wanted to know." He leaned the final few inches into her, kissed her on the tip of her nose, and pulled away to grab two sacks of food. "I'm flexible."

Lina felt the blood rush to her face. What had she said? "That wasn't what I meant, what_ever_ you're thinking. Hey, come back here! I just wanna clarify what was going on just now!"

But he was already inside the kitchen, chuckling at her confusion.

End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 7


	8. Tours and Presentations

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER EIGHT **– Tours and Presentations –

"We will present education on funeral service to organizations,

schools, and groups at our downtown location."

* * *

The doorbell rang and there was nothing for him to do but to square his shoulders and open it. "Come in," Zelgadiss muttered, then gasped when his eyes came to rest upon the largest, tallest man he had ever seen.

"Ho! You must be the new nephew. Just call me Gaav." The huge man with a lion's mane of coarse, red-orange hair shoved a ham hock-sized hand towards Zelgadiss.

Zel didn't even blink an eye; he stood ramrod straight, aghast at the man before him and wondering how he could possibly be related to any of them.

Gaav grinned and then shot an impressively shaggy pair of eyebrows into his bangs when he beheld Zelgadiss' unusual coloring. Zelgadiss was not your average-looking teenager. "Wheeeew doggies! I don't know if you were lucky to get out of there alive or not. How do ya feel?"

_Pain!_ Zel thought as Gaav wrung his hand in greeting, but he answered as powerfully as he could muster, "F-fine."

"So, _**you** _are Rezo's boy..." Gaav pushed inside the door and bent to remove his shoes, as was customary in the land.

"Grandson. My name's Zelgadiss," he swallowed. He was forced to step out of the shadows and into the light.

Gaav ran a paw through his bangs and gave the odd-looking kid the once over. "Zelgadiss, eh? Man, are you ever blue! Is that yer natural hair color? Never seen anything like it before, but then kids these days all look like freaks to me."

Before Zel thought of an appropriate response, Valgaav stumbled into the room. "Thought I heard a familiar voice. Hi, Dad."

Gaav forgot Zelgadiss in an instant and wrapped his boy in a hug, "Good ta see ya, boy! I think you've grown more since I last saw you." He stood back to look him over.

Valgaav, Zel noticed, was a foot shorter than his father, and since Zel knew his cousin to be over six feet tall, he figured that made Gaav over seven feet in height. He also could sense that these two, the father and son, loved one another; that realization came with a twinge of jealousy. Zelgadiss had been estranged from his mother and father for some time, but even when they had lived under one roof there was no love and warmth, nothing like what Valgaav and his father shared.

"Not possible," Valgaav said with a bemused smile. "It's only been a few months and all my clothes fit the same. Yer just getting shorter."

"Hmmm," Gaav said as he pondered the possibility. "What's all that stuff on your face? You're not going girly on me now, are you, boy?"

Zelgadiss checked a laugh with difficulty, remembering how Val looked in drag at the funeral home. _That was a month ago?_ he thought, awed by the leap in time since the event.

"No, Dad." Valgaav frowned at Zelgadiss, at whom he was already a bit peeved over the whole Amelia thing, and looked abashed like a fourteen year old. "It's just the fashion in Atlas City. So, you staying for your birthday?" he asked, forcing a change of subject.

"I'll be in and out 'til then. Isn't that wild-woman's good-for-nothing kid here, too?"

Gaav looked over the other boy's shoulders for Xelloss. Xel was the son of Gaav's sister, Zelas. On cue, Xel and Lina pushed through the entry.

"My, my, it's my favorite uncle!" Xel mouthed behind his hand, "Does he know not to mention MORGUE?"

Valgaav shook his head, and then said to his father to speed things up, "Um, this is Lina Inverse. We, ah, we got a bunch of folks coming over, Dad. "

But his father was mesmerized by the lovely Lina. "Proof that good things come in small packages," he murmured over her hand, then kissing it in a grand show of manners.

"Um, thanks," Lina said, keeping herself under control. First Xel with a peck to her nose and now Gaav the Red was kissing her hand!

Xel frowned and turned his attention full on Lina. "I think it's time for a _cat scan_."

"A what?" she raised an eyebrow. She was getting used to playing the straight man to his quirky sense of humor.

"A cat scan...kitty search. You want to see the new kittens, right?"

"Yeah!" Lina said as she cheerfully followed Xel to his room.

This gave Valgaav the opportunity to explain to his father how they were trying pass off as actors to hide their real jobs.

Gaav laughed. "Dealing-in-the-dead is not appealing to the young ladies? I see, well, you won't be able to keep it a secret for long. That young woman, for one, is too sharp, but I get the picture. Listen, I got plans, too. I'll see ya'll later." He gazed about the room again before leaving. "Clean. Good job. Watch the cat population."

"Thanks," Valgaav said as he walked him to the door. "Xel and Zelgadiss are good roommates, especially Zelgadiss– he cooks. And, um, the cats will go, mostly. But what makes you think Lina's smart? She hardly said a word."

"Oh, ho!" Gaav roared. "I live in town. I got ears! She's Luna's sister, _the_ Luna. Here come your friends!" he grinned, while climbing into his car, giving Gourry, Sylphiel, Filia, and Amelia room to enter unhindered by his substantial body.

"Did you see that insulting bumper sticker on that man's car?" Filia started in as soon as she entered the house.

"No, I was trying to see who was getting in the car," Amelia explained.

"It said, 'My Juvenile Delinquent is Screwing Your Honor Student.' Crude. Typical of the kind of guys that live here, though," Filia added quickly. "Except Zelly, of course. Now, where's that Xelloss creep? I want to give him a piece of my mind."

"Better be a small piece," Gourry muttered, much to the surprise of both Zelgadiss and Filia who were standing nearby.

"What?" Filia turned her ire upon him.

"He meant he hopes you're not going to start a fight right before the club gets started," Zelgadiss put in adroitly before turning to Gourry, asking, "right?"

"Okay," Gourry nodded.

Valgaav barked out a laugh and folded up into a chair, "...a small piece...don't wanna lose toooo much more, or else...there won't be...enough...le-e-e-ft."

Filia narrowed her eyes and strode up to him, an available target. "And I suppose you think that disgusting bumper sticker is funny too?"

"Hell no, but my Dad did when he stuck it on his car."

Her eyes widened with that information. "At first I thought I might have known you from someplace, but now I'm certain that's impossible. I don't give creeps like you a second thought. Come on, Sylphiel. Let's get my movie started before I change my mind and go home."

Down the hall, Xelloss finally had Lina alone. He walked with a lift in his step and a smile on his face. "This way," he said, indicating the entry to his room. "Have a seat and I'll bring the kittens to you."

He chose two fluffy furballs from his drawer and set them on Lina's lap. "I think these kittens are the strongest," Xel suggested helpfully, eyes wide and steady. "One's like the mom and the others are like the black tomcat, who we suspect is the father."

Lina was resting on Xelloss' bed now with the pair of sleeping kittens. "These two are pretty cute, but I know that I'll take the black one. Hey, there's a funny little fellow in there."

"Yes, that one belongs to Zelgadiss. He named it Chimera."

"Right...he would pick the oddball." Lina smoothed the tiny black kitten's fur. "So tiny, ya know?"

Xelloss' attention was more on Lina than on the kittens, though. She was strong-willed like her older sister, but that was about at far as the similarities went. He felt drawn to the petite red-haired girl sitting invitingly close to him, but spiritually distant. She didn't respond to any of his advances as he expected. She was refreshing, vibrant, exciting. Yes, he found Lina attractive, but was it irresistibly so?

Lina looked towards the door. "Oh, I think I hear the others coming in. Go get Amelia so she can pick out hers."

"Hers? Oh, yes, her cat. Inna minute. But first..." He had noticed that both her hands were occupied with kittens, so he leaned in and brushed her lips with his own. "You are driving me crazy, Lina," he confessed in a whispered tone.

Before she could shove him off, he rose and went to do her bidding, leaving her blushing in mental disarray for the second time in less than an hour.

The anime club meeting began rolling as soon as Filia pressed the play button for the DVD. They would discuss the movie when it was over. Now it was time to pay attention, watch, listen, and enjoy. The club meeting place rotated from one member's house to another's, and this was Zelgadiss' first turn as host. Zelgadiss hadn't emerged from his self-imposed shell yet, which was why Valgaav and Xel had become involved. Unfortunately, that was the only reason. Subtitled cartoons were something new to them, and since this was the middle of a series, they were not following the story or finding the experience to be terribly interesting.

Cats were draping themselves comfortably over people and furniture, giving Xel something else to stare at. His attention drifted until he had to start talking.

"If you throw a cat out a car window does it become kitty litter?" he said in a low voice to Valgaav. Not low enough.

"No, but you do!" Filia hissed. "Now shhh!"

Gourry wasn't following the "Lain" movie Serial Experiments Lain very closely either, having been lost from part one, and so was happy to have others to chat with. He leaned back. "Why do you figure they don't make mouse-flavored cat food?" Gourry whispered with a look that made it hard to tell if he was serious or not.

Zelgadiss answered him before being poked to silence by Lina. "It is marketed to people, not cats, ouch!"

"Shhh!" Lina hissed.

Filia had been concentrating intently on the anime, her face serene and attractive. The continuing muttering in the peanut gallery triggered a change to her composure. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde-like, her eyes narrowed and canines seemed elongated into fangs. With a little imagination, you could believe that she was a fire-breathing dragon.

Xel was just getting started. Lina hadn't seemed truly angry, as long as he just kept his voice low, but his nemesis, Filia, was really irritated. He thought he might have a little fun at her expense. "If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?" He licked his lips, pursed them, and gave Filia a wink.

Filia's face reddened.

"Homicide or suicide?" Valgaav choked out in an attempt to subdue his gravelly voice.

Lina found herself smiling in spite of her annoyance. "Shuddup, idiot."

Gourry scooted back, closer to Valgaav and Xel. He liked the other two guys even though he was wary of Xel's intentions toward Lina. "If a cow laughed real hard, do ya think milk would come out her nose?"

"Ho!" Valgaav sputtered. He was trying to keep it down, as ordered.

"SHHHHHHHHH!"

Xel smiled and shook his head, "Okay..."

But this time Zelgadiss leaned in and said, more loudly than necessary, "Okay, smartass, so if you're in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens when you turn on the headlights?"

Xel gasped, "I hadn't heard that one...good job!"

"Please!" begged Amelia.

At which point Filia sat up, twisted around to face the noisy boys, pantomimed 'zip it up or I'll cut your throat' in a couple of quick, decisive motions, then returned to her previous position.

In a barely lowered voice, Xel asked, "Do you need a silencer if you are going to shoot a mime?"

Filia turned her head to catch him mock-shooting her with a finger gun. He grinned as he asked Valgaav, "Do you think we can we shoot her during tourist season?"

Gourry smiled. He was enjoying this. He could tell that they were cleverer than him, but he was holding his own. "So... why is the third hand on the watch called a second hand?"

"Because the first one was embedded in your brain, jellyfish for brains!" Lina shouted as she punched at him, missing his jaw but connecting with his shoulder.

"Miss Lina! I can't hear!" Amelia chastised her friend. "The music's getting really scary in this part. Something awful's going to happen, I just know it!"

"Why is it that night falls but day...?" Xel snapped a carrot stick in two, "... breaks?"

Lina's head spun, "Where'd you get that?" her eye on the carrot piece waving in the air.

Xel slowly passed her a plate of snacks he'd collected, making it appear to come out of thin air. "Maaaagic, my dear."

She took the plate, eyeing him curiously beneath her eyelashes, then with a wicked little smirk she asked. "Do you think that killing time damages eternity?

"Gods, I hope not!" Xel gasped, dramatically falling limply on his side to the floor. "Because if it does, my entire future is doomed."

"Oh, brother." Lina rolled her eyes. "You ever think why it is that fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing? Huh? Because it doesn't matter if you have no chance at all."

He blinked. "Oh." He absorbed the shock. "She doesn't mean that about me and her," he assured himself. He also decided that exchanging clever quips wasn't a substitute for really talking when it came to establishing position in a budding relationship. It was time for Xel to ask Lina out. He was stopped from acting on that thought, though.

"Okay," Filia said, and pressed the 'stop' button. "Break time. If you're all just going to talk, just stay in the kitchen, how 'bout it?"

She was nearly trampled in the rush to the snacks.

Lina ripped apart bags of chips while Sylphiel buzzed about finding bowls to put things in before the bags were completely depleted. "What happened to all your serving bowls, Xel?" Sylphiel asked.

"Oh, those were borrowed, but I can buy some if you think I'll be needing them," he smiled ruefully.

"Hell, don't waste your money on crap like that," Lina waved them off. "We can just fish around in bags. You got any more salsa?"

Gourry found it first and had it in his hand just as Xelloss saw it. "Over there," Xel pointed, hoping she'd be willing to fight for the jar. He much preferred to see Lina fighting with Gourry than fighting with him, or getting chummy with Gourry– either alternative being bad.

"Too much meat. It's everywhere!" Filia complained. As usual, she was at odds with Xel. "Is it really so difficult for you to accommodate vegetarians?"

He could have stopped to explain that it was Lina who picked out the menu, not him. He might have taken the time to point out the chips, dips, and fruit and carrots were not meat, but he didn't. That would have been a defensive move, playing into her hand. Xel preferred taking the offensive– it was heaps more fun, from his standpoint. Xel pulled a tray of heated 'chicken nuggets' out of the oven and asked with an innocent looking expression, "Isn't boneless chicken considered to be an invertebrate?"

Zelgadiss swallowed his smile and held out a peace offering of grapes. "Filia, try these." Despite Filia's sudden change of feelings toward him, which he understood to be her obvious aversion to blue-skinned, scarred, silver-haired freaks, he still harbored a first-love ache for her.

"And I'm not a fake vegetarian who eats seafood or anything like that!" she shot at Xelloss for the invertebrate comment. "Oh, thanks." She took the proffered fruit from Zel, managing to do so without contacting his skin.

"Sure," he replied, his male ego plunging to the depths of his soul.

Filia couldn't look him in the eye, not yet. How could she? She knew it was pretty shallow of her to drop him like she did, but what else could she do? It wasn't like they were going at it hot and heavy or anything. And, from what she could tell, he had been thrown out of his house, disinherited; he wasn't going to go to college– who would hire him anyway? What kind of future did he have to offer now? He hadn't even left _this _house, and who could blame him? Still, she did feel bad just ignoring him...

"Now where did that nutritional overachiever go with my Lina?" Xel muttered as he looked around for Gourry.

"Who do you mean? Oh, yeah...Gourry. She was chasing him down the street, last I heard. No, here they come." Zelgadiss passed them on his way out of the kitchen.

"Movie time!" Lina announced. "I gotta split on time tonight."

Filia, still picking over the food, chose a cracker and cheese combo. She was occupying the chair Lina had just vacated, and was about to cram the tidbit into her mouth when Xelloss sidled up to her and cracked, "Practice safe eating always use condiments." He topped her cheese with a squirt of mayonnaise, and then lunged out of her reach, giggling.

Filia observed her snack, and the bad joke, with a look of supreme disgust, which tickled him even more. She was trying to come up with an apropos retort, which would extinguish the smug look on his face and lay him low, but her mind failed to come up with anything. Instead, she just glared at him and rose to her feet, unintentionally scraping the chair on the floor.

The sound made Amelia cringe. "Like fingernails on a black board, ugh!"

Filia was still unable to come up with a suitable cutting remark, and Xelloss recognized that. He had her beat at last. His smile widened as he came up with another sharp remark of his own.

"So, tell me, Miss Filia, how can someone '_draw_ a blank'? Ah, come on. You have a sense of humor, don't you?"

He was about to taunt her further, hoping for a really violent reaction when, to his delight, Lina reappeared.

"Come on!" Lina shouted at him and pushed him into the front room. "You have a death wish or something?"

"Oh, no! I plan on living forever," he smiled. He licked his forefinger and then ran it along her lower lip in a sudden movement. "So far, so good," he added with an air of supreme assurance.

Lina wiped off her mouth and was about to speak when Gourry jostled her.

"I just figured out who you remind me of," Gourry announced. He pushed Lina and Xel apart and managed to look congenial at the same time.

"Who's that?" Xel asked. He kept smiling, but with great difficulty.

"That dead dude, _Ser-a-pee_, or something."

"You mean_ Tadaaki_?" Lina asked, and stared hard at Xelloss. "We went to his funeral."

Sylphiel caught Tadaaki s name, and asked, "What about Tadaaki?"

"Mr. Gourry thinks Mr. Xel looks like him. I don't know..." Amelia said.

"Yeah, some," Lina confessed. "Face shape's different."

"No, I don't think so," Xel said hastily, and shielded his face with his hair.

"Humph! Tadaaki was better looking and in better shape," Filia said, recovering her good humor and fighting stance.

Xelloss, who had had enough of the unfavorable, to him, conversation, flippantly snapped back at Filia, "Why is it called lip_stick_ if you can still move your lips?"

She opened her mouth then closed it, frowned, then flicked on the movie. "Here we go."

Valgaav chose to sit far away from his two cousins and closer to Amelia and Sylphiel, both quiet, well-mannered, young ladies, the kind his mother would have wanted him to date, but not the type he seemed to attract. His eyes roved appreciatively over the two girls, who were whispering together. They were both so pretty and nice and too virtuous for him, he thought.

And then Amelia addressed him. "You are going to the audition tomorrow, aren't you Mr. Valgaav?"

"Yeah. I guess so."

"Oh, don't be so down about it. You're going to do great and get the job because you are so talented. We want to come and cheer you on!"

"Uh, no, Amelia, I don't think so. I don't..."

"You'll do better with a supportive audience. I read that somewhere. And then we can go out to lunch to celebrate! All of us!"

"You're pretty confident." He was taken aback by her forwardness. Was she asking him out, in a way? Or were they all just hanging out together? He wasn't sure how dating went in the White Shrine Capital of the world. In Atlas City he mostly just hung out informally with girls, guys, groups, whatever.

"I've got faith in you, like I said," Amelia cheered, her eyes glowing with joy.

"Oh, well... Hey, I can't make it. I forgot. I've got this appointment with the vet."

"What? You can't miss this opportunity to get an acting job!" Sylphiel put in.

"It's important. I gotta take the tomcat in to be neutered. I was told it _had_ been done, but, well, we got the kittens to prove it wasn't, so I gotta do that. I almost forgot."

Sylphiel and Amelia exchanged knowing smiles. "I'll do that for you, Mr. Valgaav," Sylphiel blushed slightly. "I'll take your cat to the vet. Do you have a cat carrier, or should I bring one when I stop by?"

Her sweet offer caught him off guard. He had no way out now; no excuse not to go to the audition. "Oh, ah...thanks. That's not necessary. I have a carrier. I'll bring him along to the theater and you can pick him up there."

"Good! Then that's all settled. Mr. Zelgadiss is coming along, too, isn't he?" Amelia asked.

"I doubt it, but I'll ask," Valgaav said aloud, but thought, _maybe. _

Valgaav looked around, but didn't see Zelgadiss anywhere in the front room. "Probably in his room. I'll talk to him later." Again, he mentally tagged on the _maybe._

* * *

It wasn't exactly a mob, but there were many tens of 'hopefuls' waiting outside the theater for their chance to 'be seen'. Valgaav, Xel, and Zelgadiss, who had been roped into holding the cat carrier for them, looked like rejects from the un-dead as they climbed out of their car. Transitioning from working nights to weekends often meant sleepless nights and dragging days. This was one of those days.

"Good thing we don't really need this job," Xel sighed as he ran a hand through his hair.

"I feel like shit," Valgaav managed to utter. He stumbled, nearly dropping the carrier.

"I'll take that," Zelgadiss said. However, _he _nearly dropped the cat this time.

Valgaav's rock climbing had given him extraordinary strength making it look effortless as he hefted the eighteen pound tomcat and five pound carrier. Zelgadiss stabilized himself and hobbled into the line of characters entering the theater building muttering, "Maybe this cat needs to lose a little weight."

"I think that's what we're sending him in for," Val laughed.

The director and producer for the show were busily sorting applicants by role and spreading them out into different area of the theater. Amelia and Sylphiel found Zelgadiss, sweatshirt hood pulled low over his head, sitting alone.

"Hi, Mr. Zelgadiss!"

"Amelia...Sylphie...hi."

"Hi, Zelly. So that's the patient?"

He nudged the cat cage with his foot. "Yeah, I should carry it out to your car for you, though. It's heavy."

"Oh I can handle it, I mean, I work out all the time," Sylphiel assured him. She grabbed the handle and grunted. "Ugh! Oh, no kidding! He's huge! You must be really strong to have lugged him all the way in here," Sylphiel said.

He smiled shyly and shrugged. "Yeah...that's me," he said to himself.

Xel and Valgaav ran up at that moment, "You're not leaving, are you?"

They had had a difficult time convincing Zelgadiss to come. It had meant leaving the security and obscurity of the house and possibly being seen by the outside world. Cat-sitting had been their only hope.

Zelgadiss shook his head. "No, I was just helping them with the cat. He can stay out in Sylphiel's car with the window down. It's cooler in the shade than in here." And then he left his cousins to fill out forms and look over lines to read.

Indeed, it was heating up. The theater was stuffy without air conditioning running (Why burn money making it comfortable for non-paying customers?) And with all the people inside, it was decidedly hot. Mr. Tomcat would be far happier outside. When Zelgadiss, Amelia, and Sylphiel returned, Valgaav's name had just been called for his audition.

"What kind of a part is he trying out for, do you know?" Amelia whispered to Zelgadiss as she watched Valgaav's odd behavior on stage.

Valgaav was limping around, one arm swinging uselessly at his side and howling.

"I have no idea, but it looks painful," Zelgadiss replied.

He looked about for Xel to ask him about the parts, when Valgaav's tryout came to an end and Xel's name was called. Valgaav stood off to the side and waited while Xelloss attended to the director's words. Then Xel, too, began to moan and groan and lurch stiff-legged around the stage.

"My dear gods..." Sylphiel gasped. "What is the matter with _him_?"

Zelgadiss had flung off his hood, thinking that he was better off frightening the folks, if that were possible–they looked like crazy actor-types to himthan frying his brains. "I think it's a combination of too much work and too little sleep."

But then, to his horror, Zelgadiss watched Xel point HIS way, at HIM, pointing HIM out to the director, smiling like a dope, and gesturing HIS way!

"Oh, Mr. Zelgadiss! The director wants you up on stage, too!"

Zelgadiss came about as close to throttling Amelia as he ever had, when an even more terrible thing happened to distract him; the producer was working his way through the throng, approaching Zelgadiss personally. When he was nearly upon the poor guy, the producer crowed to Zel, "Marvelous makeup job! I'd take you just on your makeup talent alone! You'll be fine, I'm sure; no experience is necessary for the part. You and your...cousins? Right? You will all do fine."

"We will? For what? What parts are you talking about?" Zelgadiss sputtered, reeling from the sudden, intense scrutiny.

"Why zombies, of course! In the Return of the Curse of Zoamelgustar we need dozens of zombies, but you...you are incredible."

"Oh gods..." Zelgadiss groaned.

Sylphiel and Amelia were ecstatically enthusiastic and cheered as Xel and Valgaav joined Zelgadiss at their seats with the list of rehearsal and play dates.

"I told them that I'm doing the makeup. I mean, we are the ones who know what the dead really look like!" Xel laughed. "Come on, we'll all take the cat to his doom, and then lunch, all right?"

"I hate you," Zelgadiss muttered so quietly only Xel could have heard him.

"I know," Xel returned cheerfully. "But you'll thank me for this someday."

* * *

The big black tomcat, it turned out, required a repeat neutering operation– the first one having been incomplete– and so, he remained overnight with the veterinarian.

Valgaav, Xel, and Zelgadiss had lunch with Sylphiel and Amelia, although Zelgadiss wasn't speaking to anyone. Valgaav was satisfied that Amelia harbored no special feelings for or an attachment to his freaky-looking cousin. Zelgadiss wasn't sending out any kind of signals; he wasn't even talking, so Valgaav concentrated on enjoying his lunch. The more he watched their lack of interaction, the more certain he became that Amelia had _never _been particularly fond of Zelgadiss. Then, when he noticed Amelia turn her eyes upward to meet his own unusual amber-toned eyes, Valgaav believed it was possible that she favored himself now, which warmed his heart and sent an embarrassing flush of heat to his face.

Sylphiel skillfully dodged Xel's moves. That also pleased Valgaav to no end. He was a bit jealous of his cousin's ability to attract girls and make idle conversation that brought them, as if under a spell, to his bed. Xel appeared confounded at every turn and twist in their light banter. Whether she was so disinterested in Xel, or was simply too dense to get what Xel was driving at, Valgaav didn't know for sure, but he admired Sylphiel profoundly.

By the end of the meal Valgaav was feeling much better about himself, Xelloss was wondering if he was losing his touch, and Zelgadiss was wishing for a gigantic hole to open beneath his feet so that he might drop out of this plane of existence.

They parted company at the door; the girls heading out to do some shopping and the boys heading for home to do some laundry. On the way (Xelloss was driving so 'the way' passed magically by Amelia and Lina's house), they spotted Lina playing frisbee with Filia on the front lawn.

"HEY!"

"Lina?" Xel called out in mock surprise. "Are you busy? Want to come over for the kittens? "

"Yeah! Hold on." She asked Filia if she would like to join them, but she declined with a good excuse.

Lina climbed into the back seat of the car alongside Zelgadiss. "I didn't think they'd be weaned so soon."

Valgaav looked over at Lina, "They're not."

"Really?" Xel asked as if he was totally mystified. He pulled away from he curb. "Well, I'll be... Oh, anyway, you can come look at them then so they get to know your smell and voice."

She was satisfied with the answer, to Xel's relief, and Valgaav rolled his eyes. How Xel got away with stunts like that he didn't know, but he did. Xelloss was a lady magnet, and although this one he might not catch, he was working his plays persistently.

Xelloss was pleased with the way the day was turning out. His acting career was on its way and now he was going to have some quality time with the current 'girl of his dreams.' He figured that Sylphiel was still 'mourning' her dead friend and so was immune to his charms, for the time being. Yes, he was pretty happy, and then they were greeted at the door by Gaav. His car wasn't visible. _Where had he come from? _Xel wondered.

"Good. Ya'll 'er back. I got some things I want to tell you, so gather 'round. First, things are changing in the business. More competitive. Cut-throat at times. But I've found a need to fill. **WE **are going to do **_pick ups_**," Gaav added importantly.

Gaav's announcement was met with confusion, dismay, and distress: the three cousins.

"_Pick _ups? What are those?" Valgaav asked.

"Not work! Not today," Zelgadiss moaned.

Xel was waving his arms madly, "No, no, no!"

But, alas, it was too late. Lina had overheard everything, and now her curiosity was piqued. "Yeah, what do you mean by _pick ups_?"

Gaav, pleased to have an interested audience, drew a deep breath in order to bellow expansively, when Xel wilted into a chair and said in a bored tone, "He means to send out poor schmucks like us to load up a van with dead bodies, probably have someone listen in on police reports for accidents so we can get the scoop on the other funeral homes."

"Well I'll be damned," Gaav deflated. "Zelas is already into that? I thought I got the idea first? Well I'll be..."

Lina was doing the math Like a Cray 2000. "You guys work at a funeral home... THAT one, the, ahhhh... Rubyeye one that we were at!"

Xel nodded and threw his arm over his eyes. He had given up the sham. Lina would either take flight or...

"Cool. You cut 'em up and all, or just stuff 'em?" Her eyes glowed with interest.

Xel's arm slipped off his head, revealing his eyes in a rare expression of shock, and his mouth mute.

"We do autopsies, embalming, whatever," Zelgadiss answered.

"Pick ups now, too, _apparently_," Valgaav snorted. "Xel's a pathologist, and I'm...good at what I do. _Dad, are you listening_! You read that report, didn't you? With Zelgadiss' chemistry background, we solved a murder case. Just us! We don't have time for charging around the country loading up little old ladies' bodies. We wanna do some real investigative research-type work for a change. Van runs are drudge work."

"I'll do 'em!" Lina volunteered.

"You can't drive," Zelgadiss reminded her.

"If it pays, I'll learn fast," she insisted. "I can do okay; I just haven't gotten around to getting my license, what with no car to take it in..." She caught Xel's eyes and smiled girlishly. "If I could borrow yours...?"

"You ever seen a dead body?" Valgaav asked. He was thinking grotesque with maggots hatching.

Lina thought for a minute. Hadn't she _just_ gone to a funeral? That guy had been dead, right? "Yeah, no biggie."

"Can you bowl?"

Everyone turned toward Gaav. What had ever possessed him to ask a question like that? Sure, he was loud and overbearing, but crazy?

"Funeral home bowling league. Starting next month. The membership is nearly fixed, though we need some of those fancy newfangled shirts. We **must** win this year," Gaav growled.

Valgaav turned to Lina to explain, "That's why Xel is working for us. Player trade. Zelas, his mother, owns the Wolfpack Funeral Home, and their team has kicked ass for the past two years, mostly because of him. Dad traded two players, meaning employees, for him."

"And a great deal of cash, too! Well worth it!" Xel opined from the beyond.

"We'll see about that," Gaav muttered. "We have great potential this year."

Lina perked up, "Well, Zelly and I have been on a winning team for years, different league, of course."

"Leave me out of this," Zelgadiss began to moan.

"Shuddup! Anyway, he and I hadta split up this year to make the other teams more equal." She glared at him, daring Zelgadiss to deny the truth. He glared back, but said nothing. "But your team will win as long as he and I play on it. _If _we play for you, you will win, guaranteed."

"You haveta be an employee," Valgaav told her.

"Well? Do I get the job?" she asked Gaav.

"Get that license..."

"Consider it got," she said with complete confidence that it was a done deal.

"You'll have to work the night shift..."

"Noooo," Zelgadiss groaned, slapping a hand over his face and keeling over onto the chair beside Xel's.

"I'm a night person."

"There's bound to be some godawful sights and some heavy lifting."

"Blood and guts? No problemo. I'm stronger than that guy over there," she pointed to Xel, who didn't do anything to indicate that he had heard, disagreed, or cared.

"Fine," Gaav grinned. "Hired. Report to the office. Ask for Vurumagen, as soon as you get your license."

"Now about my pay..."

"He handles all that."

"Okay, then I want a percentage of the shirt sales."

"What shirt sales?"

"Bowling shirts! I got plenty of ideas. Nice ones for the team and t-shirt copies for the fans. They'll love'em!"

"How can you know that? They've never asked to buy anything like that before?" Gaav asked.

"Because...I am designing them, that's why. They'll be cool. You know, they will have clever things on them like: 'Support your local funeral home, drop dead.'"

Xelloss resurrected himself from the chair, regaining energy with an idea of his own, "That's good! Or how about: 'Bowl till you die, then _we _take over'."

"Heh, heh," Lina chuckled. "Yeah, we can do both and sell twice as many! You know, I tried to give the boating team the benefit of my brilliance, but they were too spineless and turned down: 'skeleton crew for boating club'!"

"Gaaaaw dang!" Gaav exclaimed. "You show great promise, girl. I like that!"

"Oh, yeah," Zelgadiss muttered into the hood that he was dragging over his face to hide. "This just promises to be...great."

"Indeed, it does," Xel smiled.

End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 8


	9. Passion and Love

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER NINE **– Passion and Love–

"Our greatest inspiration comes from the firm belief that our passion

and love for funeral service will assist in delivering exceptional care

to each family we are privileged to serve."

* * *

Even though Lina hadn't nailed her driving test yet, she came to work with Xel, Zelgadiss, and Valgaav. She was curious about what went on behind the closed doors of the funeral home, and Xelloss was more than happy to have her close to him. Valgaav and Zelgadiss were less pleased.

She held her own as Zelgadiss, with step-by-step instructions by Valgaav, opened up his first cadaver.

"What's the note at the bottom of the work order?" Valgaav asked Xelloss.

"It says we are to perform an autopsy with ligament collection. Ligaments to be returned to the hospital."

"What do they do want with them?" Lina asked.

"Transplants," Valgaav answered. "What else, Xel? Prep for embalming?"

"No, says here that it's for cremation. I'll go see when then next burn is scheduled."

Xelloss trotted across the room to a wall chart. "Morning shift, as usual."

"Easy night, then," Valgaav sighed, then turned back to watch Zelgadiss' progress on the 'Y' cut. "Nice, Zelgadiss."

A few minutes later during the 'running of the gut', Lina stepped out for fresh air. She had been thinking about Nahga and Luna going out with Xel and Valgaav. A more mismatched foursome she couldn't imagine. Nahga was this tall, built, braggart with a drinking problem, but she was fun party girl. Lina had to give her that one. Valgaav, on the other hand, was tall. And that was where the similarities ended. He was quiet and serious, as far as Lina could tell, not to mention at least five years younger than Nahga. And was it possible that he liked Lina's best friend, and Nahga's sister, Amelia? Actually, Lina was afraid to know what Amelia really thought of him. So far, they had avoided discussing either Valgaav or Xel, thanks to Zelly's accident. That was far more diverting a conversation point.

Luna. Lina had avoided talking to her lately as well. Even thinking about her and Xelloss 'hanging' together gave her the creeps. Luna was so...hard-assed, bossy, and a know-it-all, and would she_ ever _kill Lina for even getting to know Xel! So, that brought her back to wondering what it was that Xel ever saw in Luna?

When she returned, the worst of the malodorous work was over and Valgaav and Xelloss were taking specimen samples.

"So Val," Lina began. "I'll just call ya Val, okay? So, from what I can tell about'cha you're an introverted dude. Nothing wrong with that. It's just that, well, why Nahga? Why go out with a conceited, obnoxious woman like her?"

Xel snickered, "Like personality matters..."

"It didn't work out, but I guess I like outgoing girls. Takes the pressure off me for conversation." Valgaav answered simply then continued showing Zelgadiss how to remove leg ligaments.

Lina sat watching the three young men work in silence broken only by the wet sounds of flesh being cut. "You know, for three guys supposed to be related, you don't have a thing in common. Not looks, personality, or taste. Just how _are_ you related?"

Xelloss looked over to Valgaav, and then said, "My mother, Zelas, and his father, Gaav–who you have met, are sister and brother. Zelgadiss? Now there is a mystery. Everyone's a bit closed-lip about it. Right, Zelly?"

"Yes, and that's just fine with me," he replied in such a way as to signal an end to the subject. "Ready for the next leg."

"Seems to me that someone's hiding something. A dark secret in Zelly's past," Lina pushed on.

"Why would the family do that?" Valgaav asked gruffly. "Now what are you up to?" he asked of Xel.

Xelloss was removing a foil-lined bag of ground coffee from his briefcase, the same case which enclosed his treasured 'bread knife'. "Oh, just messing with the morning guys' heads."

That interested Lina. "How's that? You use coffee for embalming?"

"Oh, no, no. Not dead heads, _live_ ones, the kinds attached to living bodies. The morning shift people who work here." Xelloss giggled as absurd visions of filling brainless skulls with coffee grounds came to _his_ mind..

Lina was still confused, "I don't get it. You're providing them fresh coffee? How not-weird. You are a devious player," she looked obliquely Xel's way and smiled.

"I think so. I've been supplying their coffee maker with straight, unadulterated decaf for the past three weeks. I think by now that everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, don't you think so?" Xel looked Zelgadiss' way. "You're the expert."

"It took me less time, the third or fourth times I quit," Zelgadiss answered him.

"Aren't you the sneaky nice guy?" Lina repeated with an indifferent shrug of her shoulders. That was an unexpectedly unspectacular practical joke, in her opinion.

Xelloss nodded seriously, "I see. Well, good. Tonight...however," he broke into a devilish smile, "we switch to espresso!"

"F#!" Valgaav barked out in a laugh. "They'll be higher than kites. Sheeee-it! I'd love to be a fly on the wall tomorrow."

Xelloss, knowing a perfect setup when one was laid on him, nearly choked on his tongue as he joked, "I'll bet you would! They got some fresh warm bodies rolling in early, you flesh-eating scum of a lowlife."

Valgaav responded with a good-natured, but solid punch to Xel's gut, which was blocked and met by a left to Valgaav's chest. They both landed a couple shots, then their acrimony fizzled out.

Lina and Zelgadiss were attempting to stay out of the way and ignore the two idiots. "Sounds like a lot of work and expense for what? He's not even around to see the results," Lina told Zelgadiss.

"Inexpensive entertainment. I wouldn't put it past him to stop in and see for himself how wired on caffeine they'll be. Xel is...unpredictable certainly."

"What's with you guys and flies, anyway?" Lina asked, sharing a hit or kick of her own to stop Xel and Val's antics.

"We...find a lotta flies and their...progeny in some of the bodies," Valgaav said.

"Putting it mildly," Zelgadiss muttered.

Lina appeared unconvinced. "So?"

"Insects can be used to solve cases. The rate of hatching of maggots, the stage of metamorphosis can help determine the time of death," Valgaav explained. "We usually have a rash of them in summer. Take it away, Xel..."

"Thank you, my dear cousin Valgaav," Xelloss smiled and bowed slightly. He cleared his throat and began, "Dr. Bergeret d'Arbois of Jura performed an autopsy of a child discovered by a plasterer who was repairing a mantelpiece. He found that the flesh-fly, Sarcophaga carnaria had deposited larvae in 1848 and mites had laid eggs on the corpse in 1849, and concluded that judicial suspicion should fall on the occupiers of the house in 1848."

"Now that we're doing _pick ups_," Valgaav spit out the words, "we'll see a lot more. Particularly if we have to drag them out of the woods after they've aged..."

"That's enough!" Lina shouted. "I'll deal with it when the time comes; don't give me any ideas ahead of time, okay? So, why do you think people have this big thing about preserving the dead and having funerals and all, ya know?"

"So we can have jobs?" Zelgadiss said flippantly.

"Eh! I'm not asking you. I mean, why not just burn 'em or box and bury them? Cut the funeral houses out of the loop?" Lina asked.

Xelloss stood and paced, "It all comes back to the brute fact of our own mortality and of our complicated and sometimes self-defeating attempts to come to terms with this fact."

"Shit, we got the professor tonight," Valgaav grumbled.

Xel made a face at his cousin and continued, "I feel that we must avoid the somber sanctimony that too often afflicts people talking about matters of life and death. Nothing like some dark and morbid humor, I say. For instance, I might speculate on how much money it would take to make my dotty Aunty Dolphinia's combination golf course/graveyard, which I named the Golfatorium, solvent again. Or I could describe my father, that's Phibrizzo, you might have heard of the man? Now there is one a true out-of-the-box thinker... Where was I? Oh, yes, his unsuccessful attempts to build a suicide cleanup empire. I mean, whaddya think about 1-800-SUICIDE? Too ghoulish?"

"Yes! I was serious here. I still feel there is something almost supernaturally creepy about attempts to tart up fresh corpses for open-casket funerals." Lina said.

"Different folks hold to different traditions," Valgaav said curtly. He didn't tell her that Xel was being serious. Those were true family stories he had related. And as much as he looked forward to doing something else one day, he was proud of his father's business and devoted to his father.

Zelgadiss could feel Valgaav's defensive measures setting in. He knew that Valgaav loved his father and would defend the funeral home. When he heard the name 'Dolphinia', though, Zelgadiss jumped. It was his mother's name, and although he knew they couldn't be the same person, the notion was disturbing. So, Zelgadiss deflected the subject a bit. "Not all funeral businesses are out for the money, Lina. This one serves to solve cases and do stuff like this ligament salvaging to help people."

"But how can you tell the good ones from the cheaters?" Lina asked.

Valgaav appreciated what Zelgadiss was doing and felt bad about feeling competitive over Amelia the other night. As a show of team spirit, he helped inject a little humor into the conversation. "When you go into a funeral home, the first thing you should ask is to use the restroom. Check the toilet paper - if it's single-ply industrial toilet paper, leave. If they're cutting corners there, they'll be cutting corners everywhere else, too. I'm dead serious." He said it seriously, but then he smiled a rare smile and blushed as Lina stared at him.

"Really? I'll have to check that one out to be sure. That's really...weirdly cool, Val."

Not to be out done, Xel began, "Oh that's just the first! There's a litany of tips everyone should know to avoid getting ripped-off by the undertaker: First, always avoid those fancy, expensive 'sealed' or 'protective' caskets - they don't protect anything. Bodies decay, regardless. Nines days and the soft tissue is mostly gone, unless the body is frozen."

"Really? Well, whatdya know?" Lina said.

Xel had her attention. He raised his hand to tick-off the points on each finger, then continued. "Second, avoid all those package deals which are usually padded with services you won't use, like 'access to a grief library.'

"Cripes! They really have those? That sounds like a shady business trick to me."

"Third, shop around and use the Internet. Product mark-ups can be incredible, even 3,000 percent. I know, I can even buy embalming solution at a discount. Lastly, the best buyers shop ahead for themselves."

"Right buy now, die later plans, sure..." Lina smiled.

"Yeah, sorta. Plan and buy when you are not under duress and can make logical decisions. The worst buyers are grieving men. Men who say just 'make it nice.' They should take someone with them. They really should."

"How do you know so much about this stuff?"

"Oh, my mother runs a slew of those disreputable places. Undoubtedly unethical at times. I learned from the best of the worst, you might say. Gaav, now _his _are the best of the best. I mean, he even has the Cepheid business!"

Valgaav handed Lina a pamphlet. "Read this."

Zelgadiss nodded sympathetically. "He gave me one, too."

Lina looked at the cover: WHY DO WE EMBALM? "Ah...geez..."

"Embalming is primarily done to disinfect and preserve the remains. Disinfection is important for all who have to handle the remains, and for the public safety of our communities. In the years gone by, deaths due to Typhoid Fever, Malaria and other highly contagious diseases, put funeral directors and others who came into contact with the remains at a very high risk of contracting the same disease."

Lina looked up from her reading, "That's nice to know."

"And not entirely true," Xel told everyone. "We wear protective gear at all times and if a particularly dangerous or potentially infectious body comes in it is labeled and stored separately in lockers. AIDS cases, for instance. We haven't had any so far this summer, but they take careful handling."

"I'll bet. You haveta avoid the blood, right?"

"Every tissue and, well...everything. There is one disease that no amount of cleaning, sterilization, in fact, nothing, even _burning_ will kill the germs."

"What's that?" Zelgadiss and Lina asked together.

"Mad cow disease, the human form. If we get one of those cases we have to use special plastic sheets and tools, and then everything has to be destroyed when the autopsy is over."

"Even the knives?"

"Yep. You try to do it all with disposable blades. I've only done one of those and not in this town. Mother's place. I don't want another."

Lina shuddered at the thought, and then continued her reading aloud of the five page booklet. "Secondly, it has been a tradition to have a period of visitation of the remains. This is known as the wake, the visitation, or the 'calling hours'. Friends and family gather to view the remains and pay tribute to a family member or friend that has died. We gather to console the family on their loss, and to express sympathy to them. Without embalming, most remains become un-viewable within a short time."

Lina screwed up her face and muttered something inaudible, then went on. "There are constant changes going on chemically and physically within the remains that alters the looks and other qualities that we are accustomed to seeing. Embalming acts as a hindrance to this and gives us the time needed to pay respect and express our sympathies."

She closed up the pamphlet and shoved it down her coveralls. "Okay, okay, when it comes to convincing me that we need the legitimately operated funeral businesses, well, you are rather persuasive," Lina laughed, beaming a smile to Xelloss. Then she turned away and watched Zelgadiss close up the specimen boxes for delivery to the hospital while Valgaav flipped over to the next job on the night's work chart.

Xelloss was delighted. His spirits soared immediately. He had to stop himself from allowing it to show in his face. Lina shouldn't know how she affected him. How was it, he wondered, that Lina had that effect on him? Just a little smile and his heart was beating like crazy, his head was fuzzy, and it took every bit of control that he could muster not to grin like a madman.

He had to think of something, and then he did, a most sobering insightful thought. He had tasted the depths of loneliness in the knowledge that those who valued him did so only for his handsome face and the appetites of theirs he could satisfy. He was like a good meal: hungered for intensely, eaten, and then forgotten. It had all been meaningless, devoid of the things which last. And that did it. The smile was under complete control now. A dose of reality was all it took. He had rarely felt the need to control his urges towards a young lady of interest because it revealed his vulnerability.

"Oh, by the way...hold on a sec," Zelgadiss ran off to the changing room, then returned with a small box in his hand.

He gave the small box to Valgaav. "Do you think your dad will like it? It's for his birthday."

Valgaav was quite moved. Here he'd been thinking Zelgadiss was competition for Amelia, and the guy was not, and he'd been thinking about his dad. He opened the box and his eyes widened. "Cool cufflinks. Yeah, man, he'll love these. Where'dya get'em?"

"Lemme look!" Lina pushed her way to the front. "Wow! Are those really tombstone cufflinks? How cool is that? Yeah, where do you find things like that? Not the downtown jewelry store, I can tell ya!"

Valgaav passed the box over to Xel for him to see. "Did you see the engraving? 'RIP' on the front? Nice..."

"I won an auction bid on eBay," Zelgadiss told them.

Valgaav raised an eyebrow in question. "Is that so? I wonder what else is available. Show me how to use 'eBay', okay?"

Zelgadiss led him over to the computer and logged onto his internet account. "Welcome to the joys of eBay collecting."

Lina looked on at Zelgadiss' side with Valgaav looking over his shoulder and Xel close by Lina. Valgaav was tempted to buy everything he saw. There, to his delight, were the oddest assortment of collectibles, and all for sale. Valgaav imagined that soon their house would have them all! His cursor hovered over a bronze of a long-eared, resting dog, the Egyptian god of embalming. "Now there's a handsome statue of Anubis!" he said, his voice reflecting his feelings of admiration.

But then, here were the nesting coffin boxes– what he couldn't do with those! He pictured his climbing shoes and cramp-ons in the bottom one, ropes would fit in the middle box, pitons and hammer in the smallest top box. And then his eyes rested upon an extraordinary mortician's watch with skeletal 'hands' for hands and lightly buffed pewter case. Too bad it wasn't shock proof, he thought with disappointment. Still, Valgaav decided that the watch might make a good gift for someone who didn't bang their arms around on rocks for fun.

"I can think of a good place for that coffin wall clock," Xel smiled. "Right above the fireplace. Fires of hell– get it?"

"Not as great as that coffin purse, though," Lina said.

"Yeah," Valgaav shut off the program. "We'll do some bidding later. We got work to do."

"A lock-up?" Xel read over the work order. "We have a drug case in a locked vault," he explained mostly to Lina.

Valgaav located a distinctly unusual latch device from his heavy key ring, entered the cadaver keep, and called to Zelgadiss, "I need a hand here."

Valgaav was easily able to move the body, but what he meant was that it was Zelgadiss' job to do it. He gave Zelgadiss a few pointers, but let the smaller young man yank, grunt, pull, and roll the cadaver like a long bag of uncooperative potatoes. The soft tissue parts had already begun to decay.

"Cold, not stiff... Dead for more than 36 hours," Valgaav began reciting into the recorder. "Gunshot wound to the head enter center front forehead, exit left rear. Collecting fly egg samples from open wound and storing for incubation. Maggots...not present. Sand in hair and wound site. Microscopic examination can determine if it is ocean beach sand."

Xel explained to the others, "We have to record the data pending the court case. According to the notes here, blood was already drawn for testing, but they want a stomach contents check, yuck, and cause of death determination."

"I'd say...the bullet through the brain did it," Lina said grimacing at the appearance of the body.

Valgaav and Zelgadiss began the opening, Zel doing the cutting and Valgaav doing the observing. Xel took the samples and began the dissections. This time it was Lina who turned up the fan when Zelgadiss emptied the stomach contents over a strainer. "What's this?" he called out.

"Bingo!" Xel danced over and removed the small plastic bag from the sink with the 'pick ups'. "Shall we open it up and see what kind of dope we got here?" he asked.

They all clustered close to the dissection table and watched as Xel teased at the twine knot using surgical tools, and then, unable to release the tie, he slit the bag up the side. "Cannabis."

"What are those things wiggling around?" Lina asked.

"A different kind of maggot in the pupae stage," Valgaav scraped the creatures onto a paper and dumped them into an incubator. "I've never seen anything like those before, and they are about to hatch so we might be able to identify them."

"Identify what? The bugs? What for?" Lina was flummoxed now. "He got shot in the head by some guy wanting his drugs, but he didn't have them because he'd swallowed them."

Xel dumped the remainder of the dope in with the rest to wait and see what else might crawl out.

Zelgadiss was already on the computer. "You know this insect identifying site, Valgaav?"

"No. Interesting. We can cross check with this one I have book-marked for insects commonly found on corpses."

The two men hovered over the monitor. They quickly learned that they couldn't identify the eggs from the head. Those would have to be incubated separately. They did learn what to look for to tell one fly from another later. "Thirty-six hours and we ought to know," Zelgadiss noted. "But that thing from the bag could be a termite and not a pupae at all."

"We'll take home the two incubators and watch them. It can make a difference when they hatch out," Valgaav said. "Let's finish up the examination. So far, it's interesting."

Finding the insects and the package of cannabis turned out to be the only interesting occurrences that evening, although for Lina it was all new.

"What are _you _doing?" she asked Xel.

"Preparing tissue samples for pathological examination. Don't distract him," Valgaav said sternly. He might not be able to control his older cousin, but his position put him in charge of the shift.

Lina wasn't used to having someone tell her what to do. She never shied away from a challenge when there was something to be gained from it. Fights she had backed away from occasionallyLina had no desire to waste her youth and beauty for meaningless matters. "Okay, I was just curious what he was doing over there, that's all. I didn't know you did stuff like that here."

"We might be doing more, now that we have Zelgadiss working full time again. And if you start bringing in cases needing investigation, Xel might get down to what he's actually trained to do."

Lina cocked her head to see if Xel was going to add anything. After a pause and his continued silent dedication to his task at hand, she decided Xel wasn't going to say anything. Lina asked Valgaav, "And that's dissecting?"

"Pathology. He's a pathologist. He can figure out the course of diseases and, in particular, the cause of death."

"Like a doctor? Xel's a doctor?" Lina's interest in Xel took a whole new course. Sure, she remembered him saying he was a pathologist or some 'ologist', but it hadn't meant what it did now. Doctors were like princes of the real world, a source of wealth.

Valgaav may have noticed a stiffening of Xel's back indicating that Xel was listening to what he might say next. His reply to Lina was short and revealed his irritation. "Of a sort. If you want to know more, Xel'll have to explain it to you– but later. Zelgadiss? I'll close the body. I don't have time to teach you suturing tonight."

"Fine. I'll do the disinfecting and cleaning up." Zelgadiss wasn't sure he wanted to know what all was going on between his two cousins and all their furtiveness. While he worked, he kept an eye on Lina. He knew that Xel was attracted to her, and as much as he liked his cousin, he didn't think he was 'right' for Lina. Gourry was her boyfriend and Gourry was his friend and he owed him a certain amount of loyalty, but didn't Lina as well?

"So, Lina...you and Gourry finding time to do anything now that you'll be working nights here?" Zelgadiss asked.

Lina's flash of confusion, followed by the signal she cast as her eyes narrowed in warning, made him regret becoming involved. He had eliminated caring about relationships, hadn't he? Right. He hardened his features, and before Lina could answer, he added, "Not that it matters. I don't care one way or the other. I guess I was more wondering if you had thought about all the adjustments you would have to make to your activities, once you started working the graveyard shift regularly. It's perfect for my social life."

"I hadn't given it a thought at all," she said, leaving it open as to what it was she meant.

* * *

Lina had slept only six hours, had eaten nothing since seven the night before, and it was nearly one in the afternoon. This meant that she going to be grumpy when she opened the door.

"Who's here at this hour?" she grumbled as she kicked away the clothes she had ripped off and flung to the floor. She was glad she had this room in Amelia's house; it was secluded at the end of the hall, and it had its own private entrance.

When she opened the door, Gourry's tall frame filled the opening. "Where ya been? I haven't been able to get a hold of ya all day, or yesterday?"

"At work. I'm working night shift at the same place as Zelly, Val, and Xel." Not that she thought it was any of his business.

"Oh yeah?" Gourry's face darkened. "When did you start that?"

"Well, actually, I have to get my driver's license first and then I start, but I wanted to check out the place first." Lina yawned and checked the time. It was too late to go to the DMV today.

"Were you even going to tell me about it?" He sounded hurt.

"Well, I guess so, when there was anything to tell. It's nobody's business anyway."

That hit him like a slap to the face.

Lina didn't notice. "Wanna let me get in some driving practice?"

"With my car?"

"Yeah, I haven't got one."

"I don't have long. It's my lunch break."

"Hey, that's okay. I'll pickup something at the drive-thru."

* * *

Several days later, Valgaav, Xel, and Zelgadiss had two batches of very different insects to identify.

"Since the sand on the body's head turned out to be freshwater sand, I was expecting the eggs collected from the wound would hatch into some species of Ephydridae. According to the online insect identifier, the adults are found in moist places: marches, the shores of ponds and streams, and the seashore. But these are too large," Valgaav said. He flicked up more fly pictures on the computer.

"Nope. Just common Muscidae, the common house-fly, Musca domestica. It says here: 'These flies occur in houses, and are one of the most widely distributed species on this planet. In warm weather they can complete development in 14 days. Eggs are laid in decaying material, including, but not limited to, dead bodies'."

"That's all right, then, don't you see? That means, possibly, the man was killed indoors, remaining inside long enough to attract flies, then was moved outside to the beach," Zelgadiss deduced. "Which, if we are right means that we should alert the authorities to search the area where the body was found for a house or some outbuilding for more murder evidence."

Valgaav considered what he said a moment, and then shrugged. "It's possible. Xel said that the cannabis incubator hatched out things earlier. Let's see what he's come up with."

Xel walked into the room carrying his plastic bug-breeder. He was grinning with excitement. "Have you looked at this stuff?" He showed them the container teaming with life.

"On it," Valgaav said, eagerly shaking out an assortment of bugs.

"Okay, I see hatching and living in the dope... a Tachys species of weevil," Valgaav said to the others.

"Got it." Zelgadiss read off the important information he found. "The only one like that is normally found along the banks of streams or lakes. That goes along with what I was saying. What's that other one?"

"This little bug is an azarelius species which lives as a 'guest' in the nests of termites," Xel teased the creature with a toothpick after measuring and counting the rings on its tail.

"And this is a Hymenoptera wasp pollinator of the pear tree," Valgaav said. He looked up from the monitor. "That's everything. Now what can we make from all of this?"

"Where are there pear groves, water, and termites?" Xel wondered aloud. He had pulled out an area street map and smoothed it on the table top. "Okay, let's say we plot the distribution of these species... and study the degree of overlap, and see if it's possible that the cannabis was harvested near a stream or lake with pear trees and termites' nest nearby."

Zelgadiss nodded. "I get your point. The dead guy was growing marijuana and took this batch to sell or something and when things didn't work right, he swallowed his sample...but he got shot anyway."

"WE may never know, but with all this information, the case has lots more to go on." Valgaav picked up the phone. "The DA's office wanted our results as soon as possible."

* * *

It was a few days later that they heard back from the investigating team. The cannabis crop had been located– near an irrigation pond, a neglected pear orchard, and a termite-ridden cow pasture. The murdered man had a co-worker, who they found holed up in a ramshackle lean-to without electricity. In the shack, they also located the murder weapon and blood splatters matching the victim's. Following presentation of their evidence, the suspect in the case changed his plea from not guilty to guilty.

Xelloss was about to call Lina to give her the news. He hadn't seen her all week. She was determined to get her drivers license and start work as soon as possible. As he reached for the phone, in a preternatural moment, it rang.

"Hello? Lina!" He was unable to keep the delight out of his voice. "You did? Wonderful! You're coming to work tonight, then? You don't want to rest first? Sure, I'll pick you up. No trouble. I look forward to seeing you tonight. Okay, bye."

It was some minutes later that he remembered that he hadn't told her about the case resolution. Lina Inverse distracted him, which further perplexed him and left him wallowing in confusion.

"Damn," he grumbled. He had just opened a can of soup and the lid fell in. He used a spoon to fish it out and managed to flick tomato soup onto his clean shirt. "Damnit anyway!"

He was experienced enough to know that it would stain if he didn't clean it immediately. Since the laundry basket was overflowing, he grabbed an armful to complete the load, and tuned on the washing machine. He would have to do things differently than Gourry. No tame events. Something classy. Yeah. Xel did not hang out. Xel dated seriously, not that he took the relationships seriously, but he made dates count. He spent his money where the returns were guaranteed. Trouble was that with Lina he wasn't certain that there _were _any guarantees.

By the time he returned to the kitchen, the pot was seething, hissing, and bubbling over with frothy orange-red soup. "Noooo!"

Zelgadiss sauntered in. "I'll take care of that. I thought you said you were paying the bills?"

"I thought I could do two things at once," Xel said. "Or is it three? Now where did I put my pen? I had it in my hand a second ago!"

He spotted it on the floor under the table. "Great. How handy." Handier than that would be hearing back from Lina. He needed to get Lina alone again, but she was a hard one to catch at home and she never returned calls.

Xel got down on his hands and feet and retrieved the pen. "SHIT!" he hollered when he smashed his head on the way up.

"Having a bad day?" Zelgadiss squelched his smile with difficulty.

With a sigh, Xel answered, "I can't keep my mind on what I'm doing. That's all. OUCH! Damn. It. _All!_ A paper cut? Shit!"

As he reached for his coffee mug, Zelgadiss turned to warn him, "Remember the cat's toy...?"

But Xel had not remembered the cat toy, if he had even noticed the cat flipping her mouse toy across the room, up over the table, and into the black mug with the words 'Die young and leave a good body' on it.

"Gleck! Eeegh! F# it all! Where did _this_ come from? I'm gonna kill whichever cat it was..." Xel's voice drifted off into a mumble as he realized that he didn't know which cat it had been, would never know which cat it had been, and even if he did, he wouldn't kill it.

He signed the final check, and stacked the envelopes for someone else to lick. He wasn't taking the chance that he'd damage his tongue. There were better things to do with a tongue, and he let his mind play with that thought.

"Yeah?" He looked up when he noticed that Zelgadiss was standing nearby.

"Are you having this soup or cereal?" Zelgadiss asked.

"Soup!" Xel snapped. He thought that was obvious enough. What wasn't obvious were the answers to his pressing problems, like what was he going to do now that Lina would be near him five days, make that_ nights_, a week?

"Fine. Here. You were staring at that box for a long time, that's all," Zelgadiss said, slightly hurt at his friend's hard tone.

Xel shook his head. "Thanks. Sorry."

At that point he realized that he had memorized the back of his cereal box. Lina. He could not get her out of his mind. Lina. He was certain that she would...and then again, he wasn't certain of anything Lina. He closed his mouth over his spoon and nearly gagged. The soup had gone cold. He wondered how long he had been sitting there. A buzz from the laundry room meant that he'd been sitting there at least forty minutes because the wash was done. He got up and opened the washer. What would Lina like to do, he wondered? What would capture her undivided attention? It was summer, so someplace where they could swim would be nice. It would certainly get her out of her clothes, if only to put on a bathing suit. Maybe as small one...

Xel stuffed the wet garments into the drier, cranked it up MED-HIGH, and wandered back into the kitchen.

"Gaav's birthday party at the Palace Resort!" he chortled in glee. Of course! It would be a wonderful time. She would know Zelgadiss and Valgaav and him. No distractions or competition. That was good. He happily busied himself with plans for the next hour– until the drier buzz broke his concentration and alerted him to attention.

Sadly, he discovered, and not for the first time, that if you wash a garment with a tissue in the pocket, the entire load of laundry comes out covered with lint. "Noooo!"

End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 9


	10. Versatile

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 10 **– Versatile–

"Did you know that:

On average, right-handed people live 9 years longer than their left-handed counterparts?"

* * *

Zelgadiss watched Xelloss with a mix of curiosity and humor. Xelloss was plainly distracted, and Zelgadiss thought he knew why. Xel had asked him for 'Lina advice' on more than one occasion, and Zelgadiss had not been particularly forthcoming. As far as he was concerned Lina was Gourry's girlfriend, and until he was told differently he wouldn't do anything to hurt that relationship. Gourry was a stalwart buddy, and Zel hadn't many of those left since his accident.

He certainly sympathized with Xel that was for sure. Even _he_ had fallen for Lina, so he knew what that was like, but more his more recent loss of Filia was more painful. Additionally, if Xelloss was smarting from Lina's disinterest, then Zel could surely feel for the guy.

That was why Zelgadiss didn't say anything to Xel– it was a face-saving measure. Had they been close friends for years, then he might have broached the subject, but Xel was older and experienced. Zelgadiss felt the guy would be insulted by his interference. So, he watched, chuckled to himself, and made sure Xel didn't burn down the house or anything until Valgaav got in from another climbing event.

"I'm back!" Valgaav called from the front door. "What smells good?"

"Dinner. I broiled hamburgers. You know, something quick that won't heat up the kitchen any more. Want me to put one on for you?" Zelgadiss asked.

"Yeah, but I wanna see how long you cook it so I can do it for myself sometime." Val stood watching Zelgadiss, and then asked, "Xel eat?"

Zelgadiss nodded. "Yeah, what he didn't drop on his lap and the floor. He's changing his clothes. He's having a hard day."

"Poor Xel-bo," Valgaav said, but he was smiling while he said it. "He'll live."

Xel drove by Amelia's to pick up Lina on their way to work. As she climbed into the back set alongside Zelgadiss, she flashed her new driver's license for all to admire. "Everybody see my shiny new license? Great picture of me, too!"

"Yeah, great. Now put it away. Xel's driving. He'll look at it later," Zelgadiss snapped. Seeing Lina's picture reminded him that he would have to get his retaken the next time he was to renew his license. What a treat that would be! He decided that he wouldn't think about that problem until he had money to buy a car.

As Xel pulled into the empty parking lot at the Rubyeye Mortuary and Funeral Home, Valgaav twisted around in his seat and said to Lina, "Oh, by the way, my father's having a big party at the Palace Resort. You're invited, if you wanna come."

Xel slammed on the brakes so hard, he nearly sent Valgaav careening backwards into the windshield. The seatbelts held, but Xel's temper fared less well. Xel had been planning on inviting Lina and making it at private date. Now Valgaav had gone and made the event another just-friends-hanging-out thing. HIS PLANS WERE RUINED!

"What the f#456&!" Valgaav roared as he slammed his shoulder into the dashboard.

"Didn't you see the raccoon? Didn't want to hit it." And that was all Xel said. When he got out of the car he slammed his door before running around to Lina's side and opening her door for her. "It's gone now," he said as he extended a hand for her to take.

Lina wasn't bothered at all. She was so excited about getting her license and starting her new job that she missed the interchange of dark looks between Valgaav and Xel. "So where's my corpse-hauler parked?"

"The van is around the corner under cover," Xelloss told her, his jaw clenched as he fought to control his anger. "But first we check in and see what the assignment sheet says and get the keys."

Zelgadiss knew enough to keep his mouth shut. If Xel liked Lina, had Val's invitation come as an unwelcome surprise– like competition? Zelgadiss didn't think that Valgaav would try to horn in on Xel's action, such as it was, with Lina. He was too busy rock climbing with Sylphiel, wasn't he? Or just hanging out with the whole group. Zelgadiss suddenly felt very inferior to his cousins, and sorry for himself. He'd never get to date a girl or make a new friend.

"So do I just wait for a call or surf the police radio waves for accidents, or what?" Lina asked, not bothering to hide her youthful enthusiasm.

"There are various places that should call us," Valgaav said dismissively. At the moment, he wasn't keen on having Lina there, or having her do 'pick ups,' or being within one hundred yards of Xel. Lina would be disruptive-- he was positive of that.

Xelloss continued in his own vein. "I know that where I was employed before, the workers at Val's level frequently took payment under the table for notifying Zelas' funeral homes of deaths in the hospital. That way her funeral homes could send an agent out to approach the family."

Valgaav frowned. "That's not legal. I heard of that, but I am not aware of any cases where the allegation was proved."

Xel shrugged. "From my own experiences, I know that in some cities the funeral home business is extraordinarily competitive, and I am aware of one case where agents of two funeral homes got into a fight in the morgue over the disposition of a body that each claimed. Very ugly."

Valgaav snorted. "I'll bet."

"So, the family came up with the Inter-funeral home bowling tournament. The winner would get first dibs on all contested bodies. It simplified the business tremendously."

Zelgadiss looked Xel in the eye, uncertain if he was telling the truth or making up a funny cover-up story, when Valgaav said, "We don't compete with your mother's string of businesses; me and dad are into bowling for the fun of it."

Clearly, Valgaav and Xel were on less than friendly terms that night. It made Zelgadiss uncomfortable. Lina, luckily, either didn't notice or care. "So what do I do? Just sit and watch until the phone rings?"

Valgaav picked up the clipboard and read over the night's assignments. "First off, you have to learn about your job, the equipment, and how to conduct yourself."

"How I conduct myself? You gotta problem with how I act?"

"You represent my dad's business. You will be the first contact the families have of it, so yeah, I care how you do your work." Valgaav and Lina exchanged defiant expressions.

In the end, Lina deferred to him. "That makes sense. Okay, so what do I need to know about? I'll bet yer dad's got a pamphlet of info for me, am I right?" She winked and shared her cutest facial expression with him.

"You got it." Valgaav cracked a smile and handed over a thin booklet. Lina's charm wore him down.

"It says here that: I will need to take the following items with me: '1. Hearse, station wagon, or van, called the 'first call car' is used to pick up human remains at home, institution or coroner's office.'"

Xelloss held up the keys rattling them to get Lina's attention. "The keys are stored over here. There are ones for the fancy show hearses, but these are marked for the pick-up van. And forget what it says there; we just call it _the van_."

"Cool, I'll go out and see _the van _in a minute, then. Next... '2. A multilevel adjustable cot, capable of being raised to various heights for the convenience of the user.' Where's that? In_ the van_?"

"Yeah, I'll show you how it works." Xel smiled with satisfaction. He realized that he was the only one present who had any experience with this aspect of the job, and although he hadn't done pickups for many years, and hated it when he had, he was thankful now that he had the experience, if only to bring him and Lina some alone time.

"Good. Next... '3. A strong helper.' Hmm, looks like that will have to be you too, at least for the training period."

"Guess so..." Xel smiled a killer smile he couldn't hold back.

"It will be Zelgadiss after that. Xel is too highly paid for that duty," Valgaav put in.

"Got it. Just what makes you so highly paid, huh? I would think Valgaav would be, since it's his dad's place."

"That has nothing to do with pay," Valgaav snapped.

"I have a PhD, Lina. He has a two-year degree," Xel paused to gauge Val's state of mind. When Val nodded, Xel knew it was okay to release a little more closely kept information. "... although he wants to go back to college to specialize in, what was that? Oh, yes forensic anthropology– studying bones. Don't say anything to Gaav, though; he wants Valgaav to remain here full time." Xel folded his arms and waited for Valgaav to disagree, but he didn't. "Valgaav started college when he was seventeen. Quite the genius."

"Not really," Valgaav muttered, and turned away to review the assignments.

Lina knew that meant Xelloss was older than she'd first guessed. Now she was intrigued, but continued her reading. "Interesting, Okay, '4. At least 1 clean sheet...'"

Zelgadiss showed her where to find those.

"Got it. '5. A head rest or pillow...'"

"One will be in the van with a couple spare sheets. If not, come see us. We have a couple stashed in different places," Xel told her.

"Okay...then, oh, this is pretty obvious, '6. Good directions, name, etc.' I'll take care of that. Then there's '7. Blank death certificates.'"

"See me about those," Valgaav said curtly.

"Can't let important documents like that fall into the wrong hands," Xel said. "They come to us numbered and have to be carefully accounted for."

"Gotcha. That brings me to the last point, '8. Infectious case kit-disaster pouch.' Now that sounds serious."

"It's also in the van. Gloves, masks, plastic body bag, among other things. I'd recommend the gloves most of the time. Bodies...secrete the nastiest stuff." Xelloss shuddered slightly at some bad memory. "Above all, you should always present a professional appearance when making a removal. And there is a nice coverall in size petite 3 with your name on it."

"It's pink." Lina made a face, and looked toward Valgaav for help.

"You can get fitted for a uniform, which would look nicer, but that means coming in during day hours sometime."

"I'll do that, Val, you can bet."

Valgaav put down his notes. "Some places require a licensed employee to perform your job, and because the Cepheid folk want that too, you'll be working with one of us until your training is complete and you get your certificate. Probably by the end of summer, I'd guess. That means you could come back next summer at full pay. If you want to come back, that is."

"I'll know after the first week whether or not I like the work, but at full pay I bet I'd love even hauling them out of the river." She laughed, but something about Xelloss' expression when she'd said that made her uneasy.

"Next page," Lina read from her booklet again. "'The three places from which a funeral home is usually asked to remove a diseased human body is: 1.Hospital or nursing home; 2. Residence of deceased; and 3. Coroner's office."

The phone rang, and Valgaav, who was nearest, answered, "Rubyeye Mortuary services. Can I help you?" His eyes shot to Lina and held her. "Right. Hold on while I put you in touch with our recovery assistant who will be on the scene directly."

Lina skipped to the phone, but before Valgaav allowed her to grab it from his hand, he said, "Looks like you'll need to add a number four to that list of sites. This one falls into that 'other' category. Get good directions and any recommendations for special equipment."

Zelgadiss and Xel moved closer, waiting to find out what the mystery was. Valgaav looked serious, but keenly alert, as if he were anxious for Lina's welfare.

"Got it. Nothing we can't handle. Yeah, sure thing. Bye." She passed the receiver back to Valgaav. "Wow, you weren't kidding. You ever been to the Zanaffar laboratories at this location?"

Zelgadiss took the scribbled note in a shaking hand and read it. "Yes. Special Ops. That...that was where I-I worked. I can show you the way..."

Valgaav, who was in charge of the morgue room, made it clear whose job was what. "Zelgadiss, you stay here, we'll do some lab work and wait for Xel and Lina to bring in the body."

Lina, unable to extract the keys from Xel's grasp, pushed him towards the door. "Get moving then. It'll take us half an hour to just get there."

"Okay, you need to know a few things. Residence removals are a delicate matter. Ask yourself, 'Is this a legal removal?' If there are any suspicious circumstances about the deceased, it must be reported, like blood dripping from a hole, pills all around the body."

"I don't think that's gonna be a problem tonight, Xel. The body is in a tank of water and it's been there...awhile. Police investigators are already on the scene."

"Oh, well...that's good. Otherwise we have to report questionable case to the coroner first, here in Seyruun--according to Gaav, and he's the boss. If in doubt, have the funeral director, which on the graveyard shift is Valgaav, by the way, get a release from the coroner. It's Val's responsibility to determine if the removal is legal, and we don't want to get him into trouble, right?"

"Right. I take it you followed different orders when you did the job?"

"Well, I guess...that's a secret."

"Which means you did illegal stuff, at least Valgaav would think of it that way."

Xelloss shrugged. "Did you know that, on average, right-handed people live 9 years longer than their left-handed counterparts?"

Lina smiled at his rapid change of subject. "No."

After a short pause of silence, Xel scooted a little closer to her and asked, "Shouldn't there be a shorter word for 'monosyllabic'?"

"Oh, but there is--'jock'!"

They both laughed at that one. Lina felt that she could probably keep up with Xelloss tonight and drive at the same time. "Okay, I got one for you. Why is the word 'abbreviate' so long?"

Xelloss shook his head and smiled. "I don't know but it was probably made up by the same guy, don't you think?"

"Yeah." There were no street lights or other cars on the road. She nodded as they passed a sign for the turn off she'd been watching for.

"Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do 'practice'?" Xel asked, his voice low and serious sounding.

"No, but if you keep talking like that I'll get the creeps. Now help me. Look out for the loading area."

Lina wheeled the van into the back parking area, past the security gate and then backed up to a loading dock where an investigator was waving at her.

Xel opened the back of the van and hopped in. Lina followed his actions, and inside he demonstrated how to remove the attachments holding the cot in place. "I'll carry the accessory bag," he said as he stepped out onto the dock.

"Yeah, knock yourself out," Lina grumbled. She found the cot to be lightweight and easily maneuverable. "Hi! We're here to remove a body."

"This way."

Lina's face appeared unwell in the faintly illuminated light glowing through the murky water. She and Xel stood looking down into a saltwater tank where a partly skeletonized and badly decomposed body was floating near the water intake for the filter.

"What's this here for?" she asked with a kick to the metal corner of the enclosure.

"We were told that it's a tank of leftover sea water used in experimentation and then stored. It gets used for firefighting, when needed."

"So he drowned? Must have been in here a long time," Lina said to Xel.

"We'll see," was all he said as he passed Lina a pair of gloves. "This will get messy. Unpack a plastic cover and body bag, unzip it and spread it on the cot. If we're careful and with a lot of luck, we'll get the plastic sheet under it and haul it out that way. Watch your feet. And don't fall in."

"Thanks," Lina wrinkled her nose. The smell of rot was noticeable as they stirred up the water. "Like I was gonna."

In the end, it took two officers to help, but they managed to pack the body into the bag.

"Look at this," Xelloss pointed out to Lina and the investigator in charge. "Live fly larvae."

"Hey, even _I_ know that they don't hatch in salt water!" Lina said.

"We'll do a thorough examination back at the morgue," Xel assured the investigator, who looked shaken at the findings. "If we find that these larvae found on the body and trousers prove that the body has been in the tank for only a short time, we'll let you know, because then you'll know that the death happened someplace else and the body was moved and dumped in here."

"Can you give us a time of death with that, then?" asked one of the observers.

"Yes," Xel said as he and Lina zipped shut the bag and belted it in place on the cot.

Lina pushed and Xel guided the rolling cart to the van. Lina discovered that it was much more difficult than she thought to steer it loaded. At the van, the head investigator exchanged business cards with Lina. "Yes, Rubyeye, very trustworthy outfit. I didn't know you were in the pick-up business."

"Yeah it's a new service," Lina beamed. "Weeknights only."

Xelloss showed her how to move the cot into the back of the van. "Feet first is how Gaav likes it. That's it. Then lock it down."

Lina waved to the officers and jumped into the driver's seat. Xel hadn't missed how the one in charge had given her an especially meaningful smile. He felt a twinge of jealousy squeeze at his heart. He knew other men would find Lina attractive, and someday she'd notice, too.

"A few more reminders, Lina," he began when they were underway.

"Don't tell me, I'm already on it." Lina cranked up the air conditioner and opened the rear windows.

"Right. If there is a window, always open it for ventilation."

"Oh, say, Xel. I'm hungry, do you think that we can stop a..."

"Number two: avoid stopping at the Seven-Eleven until this part of the job is over, people are very curious. And three: vans with the company logo plastered on the side certainly never belong at McDonalds."

"Yeah, okay. I get your point. Still..." but Lina did her job and drove the rest the way without complaint.

Upon arrival at the funeral home, Xel showed Lina where to park and how to unload within the garage or carport, if possible, to block the view of the work. "During the day you'd first take all your paperwork to the office for processing."

"What paperwork?"

"Body release papers, but we'll do that next time when we have a more usual case. Anyway, it's time to roll him in through the back door. From there listen to what Valgaav tells you to do, which might be to move the deceased to an embalming table or onto a gurney to be stored in the cooler. Don't leave the body on the cot unless instructed to do so. It needs to be cleaned and prepared for the next pick up, which can come at any time, or all at once."

"This all seems too secretive. Hiding our movements from the public eye, slipping in the back door..."

"Often it is. Most people don't want to see what's going on, or at least they don't want others to see what's going on. And they certainly don't want to think that we are so sloppy that someday strangers will see what's happening to_ them_!"

"Hey Val! Look what we got! A real corpse with bugs and mystery and everything!" Lina was thrilled.

Xel wondered if there was anything that could shake her up and decided that he didn't want to meet up with whatever that might be.

"Put it on the embalming table. Level the table first- show her how Zelgadiss, don't just stand there. Okay, Lina, place the head at the end away from the drain, and Zelgadiss, help her get it out of that bag. Watch the fluids! Ah, shit..." Valgaav moved aside to let Zelgadiss get the paper towel roll.

"Completely undress the body, what little is left on it. Xel, you collecting the larvae?"

Xel was, and, while he was busy, he mentioned, "If this were in better condition you would cover it with a clean sheet. Oh, and make sure the head is supported with a head block. Again, it hardly matters with this...case."

"Once on the cot, make sure the head is propped up on a pillow or head block, to prevent a purge," Valgaav said.

"That's a nasty mess caused by gas build-up, pushing food, etc. through mouth," Xelloss clarified for Lina, who was about to ask.

"Next, position the arms with head blocks also. Arms should have the hands together at the waist, White Shrine style, or at the sides, for Cepheid or unknown." Valgaav let the rotting flesh remain at the sides of the body. "Okay, there's none on this yet, but if there is a toe tag, leave it there. Never remove ID tags. They don't belong in some desk unless you are going to look for new work soon! Same for wrist identification from the hospital: if there is any, leave it on. Zelgadiss, get a blank tag and the chart, enter the name 'John Doe' on the computer, and record the ID number on the tag and the chart we got going. Xel? You got the bugs on the chart?"

"I recorded the presence of larvae on the corpse and their number on the chart, yes. The 'bugs' are currently residing comfortably in the incubator." He smirked at Valgaav, and then carried his incubator box to his desk.

Zelgadiss did as he was told, then let Lina attach the toe tag. He picked up the accumulated garbage and plastic bags, made sure that they were sealed, then said to Lina, "This stuff becomes nastier as time goes on, believe me. This is where the garbage for incineration goes." And he showed her the bin.

Valgaav covered a smile with his hand, and then returned to business. "Lina, it's your job to clean the cot mattress and reusable body bag with a sponge and antiseptic soap. Use a little spray of antiseptic to finish it off. Don't forget to put another head block and sheet in the cot for the next use; in fact, replace anything you used, like gloves, okay?"

"Right," she agreed.

"If you had any problems with the cot, or other equipment, write it down or tell someone. The equipment must function well on each trip. Oh, then return the cot and equipment to the van or wherever it belongs."

"Yeah, yeah..."

"And when you are done with all that, wash your hands with antiseptic soap!" Valgaav shouted over the roar of water at the sink.

"Geez, whatta slave driver!"

1Valgaav and Zelgadiss performed most of the autopsy, with Lina watching as soon as her other duties were completed. Xelloss stepped in a couple times to offer his opinion, but let Zelgadiss carry the brunt of the load.

Zelgadiss, Xel observed, was a clever, smart kid who was quick to learn, exacting, neat, and detail-oriented. He liked him and wanted to help him regain his upbeat personality– not that he was any good at being constructive, but Xelloss liked challenges.

"You can tell by the size of the wound on the skull here that he was shot at close range in the back of the head."

"Execution style," Xel commented.

Valgaav nodded. "Probably."

"_Likely_. No other signs of major trauma. No knife damage to bones, scrapes or anything. The skin is pretty far gone, but I see no signs of rope burns..." Xel moved off to pick away at his larvae find.

Zelgadiss was first to spot the glint of gold as the mesh trap in the sink caught larger debris as he 'ran the gut'. Excited that he might have found a clue to the man's identity, he dug around until the gold chain and medallion were freed, and then he washed them. "Hey guys? I found something the guy swallowed. It's funny, I remember this from someplace."

Valgaav put down his knife. "Well, keep thinking. If you get a lead, we can follow up on it with dental records. Xel can run his head through the x-ray, if necessary."

"I beg your pardon?" Xel stood and addressed Valgaav. "My head will not be run through anything. Oh, I see, you meant the _deceased's_ head. Yeah, I guess I could do that, but it's been a long time since I did tech work on that machine. We might be able to get away with a dental impression and let you tackle the comparisons. The police will want to double check it all anyway with an outside source."

"I could do that, sure," Valgaav said thoughtfully. He studied up on bone identification, which naturally included teeth, in his free time. He was going to go back to school and study what he was really interested in, not the classes his father had coerced him into taking.

But Zelgadiss couldn't remember where he had seen the chain before. Everything that had happened around the time of his accident was a blank now. The more he concentrated the more certain he was that the necklace had something to do with that time, but the concrete memory eluded him.

"Come help me here," Xel called to the obviously frustrated Zelgadiss. He pointed him over to his desk.

Zelgadiss folded the chain in a towel and handed it to Lina, who had just washed her hands for the third time. "Don't lose this, okay?"

"I'm not scatter-brained," she insisted. She climbed up onto a stool and looked the medallion over. "There's a big tree on one side and a doughnut on the other. Kinda like a doughnut. Which reminds me, is there a snack machine in the building?"

"Out the door on the other side of the Cadaver Keep, down the hall, first left," Valgaav directed her before Xel could jump up and offer to show her the way. He didn't want to play the 'bad guy' all the time at work.

Xelloss was examining the fly larvae, and he had no trouble getting Zelgadiss involved comparing his findings to the on-line insect database. "Okay, we agree that the live fly larvae collected from the body and pants _absolutely _could not have survived in salt water, thus proving that the body had been in the tank for only a short time. Obviously, then, the death happened at another site and the body was moved. Okay, so based upon examination of the larvae, I estimate that the death occurred some seven to ten days earlier, the average incubation time for the most probable varieties of fly. We'd know for sure when these mature into the actual flying creature and we get an absolute ID on them, right Zelgadiss?"

"Yeah. At this stage we can't discount five or six possibilities, but they all take about the same length of time to hatch from eggs." Zelgadiss referred to the calendar and ticked off the days.

"Nice job, but can you get it_ in gear_, roll on back over, and close up the body? We have another work order to do tonight awaiting embalming in the Keep," Valgaav said. He was exasperated by the growing disorganization under his watch due to so many heads to direct. "What's the matter _now_, Zelgadiss?"

"In gear..._gear_...That word...like a name..."

"Kildear was here?" Xel piped up from his desk.

"Kildear...no, but like that. Someone... at Zanaffar Pharmaceuticals with a name like that." He dove back at the computer. "Give me a minute here, Valgaav." He entered the personnel database of the company through the company's website and using the passwords he'd memorized from his grandfather's notebook.

"What are you...whoa...?" Xel was impressed at the speed at which Zelgadiss could break into the company records. Even he hadn't that skill; of course he didn't know the passwords either. "Deerheart?"

Zelgadiss shook his head. "I saw that name too but it's not quite..."

"Dilbert?" Lina joined the group. "Isn't he in a comic strip?"

"That's it! _Dilgear_, right below that. Dilgear. That name ...this chain and that name."

Zelgadiss continued scrolling through the personnel file on 'Dilgear'. "Looks like he's on an extended vacation," Xel pointed out.

"Wow, you mean this could be him? The dead guy?" Lina asked.

"Possibly, or Dilgear killed this guy, who swallowed his chain as a clue. I don't know. I can't even picture Dilgear or recall why he's important yet, but I will. It's in my head I just need to get it out."

"Here's the picture on record. That help?" Xel looked into Zel's eyes hopefully.

"We need a hypnotist, and I know just the person!"

Zelgadiss turned around in his chair to face Lina. "That was in high school and it was just for a magic show. She really isn't..."

"She sure is! Amelia is quite adept at hypnotism. I'll call her now and..."

"Put the phone down," Valgaav ordered. "We are going to finish the job. Fill out the forms. Xel will call the investigator and pass on our findings. Then we'll do what's next on the list and go home. I want to shower, go to sleep, and enjoy my weekend, beginning with my dad's birthday party. We can call Amelia later in the morning when it won't terrify her."

"Oh, yeah," Lina smiled with a blush. "I forget what time it is for the rest of the world."

To speed things up, Xelloss offered to close up the body that may have belonged to Dilgear, while Valgaav took the upper and lower jaw impressions. Zelgadiss cleaned up, with Lina offering to wash the tools and sanitize everything for the next body. Valgaav filled out forms, and Zelgadiss covered the body with a plastic coated sheet, rolled it into the cadaver keep, and manhandled it into a locker.

Valgaav secured the lock, affixing the ID number off the toe tag to the key tag, and then helped Zelgadiss locate the next cadaver. "Check the shorter one first."

Zelgadiss found the toe tag. "You're right. This is the next one. How did you know?"

"It says: Young girl. See, on the order? That one's the smallest."

Xel requested dental records for Dilgear, and then pulled out the investigator's card and placed his call. "Xelloss from Rubyeye Mortuary...yeah, we met tonight. Here's the scoop, although we're still waiting on confirmation via dental records..."

Zelgadiss moved the body onto the embalming table and set out the cleaned tools. He pulled away the sheet, and then looked away with a blush rising from his neck. "I-I don't think I can...do this."

Valgaav placed a hand on his shoulder. "It's easier to deal with the older ones."

"I suppose, but it's not just that."

Lina left Xel's side and took a peek at the new corpse. She understood Zel's problem immediately, unfortunately she didn't think twice about telling the others. "He's never seen a naked girl before. Whatta start, huh? And now he hastta help embalm one!"

Valgaav's eyes widened. He was only a year older than Zelgadiss and it never occurred to him how different their life experiences had been. "No kidding."

If it was possible, Zelgadiss' blush deepened. "Not completely," he muttered in a tone barely discernable to the others.

"Ah...well... I'll work with you and make it strictly clinical. No autopsy is required; that was already done at the hospital where she died. Botched abortion, says here." Valgaav moved into Zelgadiss' exit path.

Zelgadiss had no other choice but to turn back to the table. "So, where do I start?"

"Wash it down with antibacterial, to start," Valgaav told him.

Seconds later, "Zelgadiss!" Valgaav shouted. He grabbed the other guy's shaking arm, forced him to drop the scalpel in his trembling hand, and wrapped him in a firm hug. He was afraid Zel was going to crack and split the building. He nudged Lina away with a harsh look. "Hey, dude...It's not a person any more. No feelings. What's important are those of the people going to look one more time at her and say good bye. See?"

Zel nodded, but he didn't 'see'. Valgaav released his hold and looked him in the eyes. "But, I can't cut her." Zelgadiss said, his eyes loaded with haunted pain. "I can't damage her...cut her...scar her..."

"So, we got to make her look peaceful again for them, her family and friends. Okay? We do it for them. This is just a...like a doll. Let's make it look good, okay? And to do that we have to do our job. Stop the decomposition going on inside. Right? Okay, then to do that we have to open the body and clean it out, re-pack it, sanitize it, replace the blood with embalming fluid, and close it up. Vurumagen will pretty her up and dress her in the morning, but tonight, we have to get her ready. Got that? See how important a job you have to do? We only have a few hours before the gases build up and degradation of the tissues begin, so...what do you say? You ready to help her family out?"

Lina sat still and listened. She was impressed with Valgaav's maturity and skill at putting Zelgadiss at ease and turning his attention off the girl's nakedness and onto the job to be done. Zelgadiss wordlessly returned to the body and proceeded, Valgaav working alongside him and teaching him the steps all the way.

"Ah, the wonders of the modern world. Yeah, got the dental records and the impressions. Valgaav! Gotta minute?"

"I can do the aspiration part," Zelgadiss assured Val.

Valgaav pushed Xel over to watch him anyway and picked up the phone. "Hello? Yeah, I took the impressions. Okay, the crown-work lines up as does the fixed retainer attached to inner lower teeth. I'd say it's a match, but you could order new x-rays. We'll put the chain in an evidence bag, sure. Body's locked up now. I'm sure it'll be secure. Okay, if you like, I'll keep the key on me. Valgaav Rubyeye. Yeah, same one. My dad. No problem. Bye."

Valgaav hung up the receiver and turned to his friends and co-workers. "We could be in danger. Lina, I think we'll give Amelia a call and check out that hypnotist act of hers. We need to get some clues to what happened to you."

Xel's face hardened. "Perhaps I should pay Rezo and Eris a call. He may have known this Dilgear fellow, and Eris owes me...us... some information."

"I..." Zelgadiss began.

"Not this time," Xel said to him. "You and Amelia have your own business to attend to. Now, back to work, right Valgaav? Let's see if we can get this out of the way before the party, okay?"

Valgaav nodded, thankful for Xel to handle that reminder. He didn't want anything to mar his dad's party. "Let's give our patient here our best, then go home."

Xel, who had already had the most important part of the party marred for him when Valgaav asked Lina to join them before he had the chance, dawdled away his time at his desk, and surreptitiously spied on Lina as she observed Val and Zelgadiss perform the procedure. He would make the best of it, to be sure, but he had to plan out his moves more carefully now. He would have to think up the perfect excuse to ask her out, so that she couldn't refuse him. No, he would have to sweep her off her feet.

"Oooh, that sucks out the blood and pumps in the embalming fluid at the same time! Cool!" Lina was excited.

Xel sighed. Sweep Lina off her feet? What was he thinking? Maybe, if he died in a bloody, ghastly way...?

* * *

End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 10 


	11. Revealing

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 11 **– Revealing –

"Did you know that:

A murder is committed in the City-State of Seyruun every 23 minutes, which makes about 22,852 murders each year?"

* * *

Xel offered to accompany Lina to her door that morning on their way home from work. "That was an intense first night of work. You don't look the worse for it." 

"Naw, it was great," Lina said with a yawn. "Though, I guess I'm not used to the hours yet. I'll see you guys this evening, 'kay?"

"Yes, I'll be driving. I'll come pick you up on our way to the party. Speaking of the party…" Xelloss leaned in closer, using one arm to prop himself against the door jam and freeing the other to lightly touch Lina's hair. "_I _was going to be the one to invite you, you know."

"Oh?" She backed up, increasing the space between them again. She wasn't afraid; she was reacting automatically to the advances of an aggressive male. "Well, it's a good thing Val did, then, wasn't it? It'll be fun just hangin'." She watched his self confidence falter in his widening eyes, then added, "You might have forgotten entirely and I'da missed the whole shebang. Later!"

Lina slipped through the doorway and closed the door.

"Foiled again," Valgaav whispered to Zelgadiss as Xelloss climbed back into the car.

"What was _that?_" Xel snapped. "Hey, I'm doing just fine, or would be if you'd keep _your_ nose out of _my_ business. What made it _your_ place to invite Lina to the party? _I_ was going to do that! I had big plans! BIG!"

"It's my dad's party, and he said I could, _dude!_" Valgaav spat. He had the aura of an angry tiger– a canine gleaming from his snarling grimace.

Zelgadiss covered his ears. The loud voices jangled his sensitive hearing in the enclosed space of the car. He hated listening to them fight. The two cousins argued a lot of the time. Zel knew that if he didn't get them onto a more constructive line of thinking, Valgaav, already an introvert, would seclude himself in his room with a cat or two until it was time to go to the party. He waited for a pause, and then inserted a question. "Um, Valgaav? What do you think of the hypnosis idea? Think it can possibly work?"

He turned in his seat to face back, and then Valgaav replied in a reasonable tone of voice, "Might. I don't know how good Amelia is at it. It's worth a try, but I wouldn't count on getting at that suppressed memory. The shock of the explosion you were in probably wiped it out and maybe for the best. Meaning that you might not want to relive the pain part, and when memories return, they might not be selective."

Although his question had broken up the argument between his friends, Zelgadiss now had another upsetting thing to think about. He seemed to substitute one bad thing for another. When would that ever stop?

When they reached home, they took turns showering and eating Zelgadiss' omelets with toast. That left the afternoon for them to sleep and then dress before leaving.

"What should I wear?" Zelgadiss asked Valgaav. "How dressed up should I be?"

Valgaav opened his door. He was wearing fitted clothes, which showed off his physique. "Impress me with your initiative."

"I know how to dress for parties, Valgaav. I wanted to know how to dress for your father's birthday party, that's all." Zelgadiss returned to his room, irritated by Valgaav's attempt at dry wit. He had simply asked a question, and the guy was treating him like a kid!

"Bring swim wear!" Xel shouted from down the hall.

"Right," Zelgadiss muttered to himself. "Thanks a lot." As if he would reveal more of himself than necessary to a crowd of people he hardly knew!

The three young men climbed into Xel's car an hour later looking refreshed after the rest and showers. "Nice sweatshirt," Valgaav commented to Zel when they were moving.

"It's all I have to cover my head," Zelgadiss replied defensively.

"I keep telling ya, you look cool and exotic, more interesting than most people No one will care..." Valgaav began. He said it kindly, but his dark mood was still intact. He glowered over at Xel, who was driving with a smile on his face.

"Besides it dark and the blue doesn't standout!" Xel said lightly.

Xel stopped the car briefly to collect Lina. She was waiting at the door, and they roared off into the evening.

"You look nice," Zel told her.

"Well, I'm not!" Heh, heh..." she said with a laugh. "I'm gonna have a blast. Got my bathing suit and a change of clothes and as long as there is food, it can't miss. So, Val? How old's the old man gonna be...or is?"

"Fifty-five."

"Whoa, that old? He looks lots younger."

"We age well. Just look at Xel. You wouldn't think he was over forty, would you?" Val asked.

"**_FORTY!_**"

"Damn it all, Valgaav. I'm not forty." Xelloss signaled, and then sped onto the freeway.

Lina agreed. "Of course not, you were at college with Val, even if you were getting your PhD."

"He wasn't getting his PhD," Val corrected. "He already had it. He was a lecturer in forensic pathology."

Lina stared at the back of Xel's sleek purple head, mulling that over. Xel glanced back at her through the rearview mirror, and said simply, "I'm 28, satisfied now?"

Well, Lina thought 28 was pretty old, but it was nothing like 40, so she wasn't going to let it bother her. In fact, as she thought more about it, she thought it was pretty cool hanging out with an older man. No teenage angst. He had a job, prospects, seemed well-heeled. Suddenly Xel looked a lot better to her. "Yeah, you don't look a day over 30, heh, heh..."

Eventually they reached their destination and Xel pulled into a parking place at the resort. He smiled as he opened her door, and offered Lina a hand out. "How about a swim first?"

Gourry knocked at Lina's door, but there was no answer so he marched around to the front door and tried the doorbell. Amelia answered it. "Hi, Mr. Gourry? What a surprise!"

"Ah, yeah, well... Hi, Amelia. Know where Lina is? She doesn't have work tonight, does she?"

"No, she's at a party. It's kinda a work thing because only her work friends were going, she said."

"And you didn't go?"

"No, I wasn't invited. Like I said, it was more of a work kinda thing. Would you like to come in? I'm watching an old movie. I could make popcorn."

"Ah, sure...guess that would be okay. Thanks."

"So," he finished chewing a mouthful of popcorn first, then swallowed and went on. "Xelloss went along, too?"

"To the party? Yeah, he was driving that nice car of his. But Mr. Valgaav and Mr. Zelgadiss were in the car , too."

From down the hallway a woman's voice asked in a hushed tone, "Did you hear that?"

And another replied, "Shhh...I can't believe Lina would do anything that stupid. Listen..."

"I would've thought Valgaav would've taken you anyway."

"Really?" Amelia asked with interest.

"Yeah, you can tell he likes ya, right? He doesn't talk to anyone else, when you're around."

Amelia smile broadened. "Really? You think so? I think he likes Miss Sylphiel a lot, too, because they go out rock climbing sometimes."

"Ain't nothing, I can tell you. They just like to do the same sport. It's the way the guy looks at you that counts, and he's got that look." Gourry finished off his bowl of popcorn and snagged Amelia's neglected one. "Besides, Sylphiel's not interested in him. There's this other guy she's been talking about...but I shouldn't say anything 'bout that. Not my place."

This news pleased her immensely. She liked the tall, brooding young man with the odd eye make up. So what if he worked for some mysterious film company? Well, it was a rather dead-end job, but nothing Amelia couldn't get past. It would be unjust to hold his job against him. Besides, he was still a college student, and that meant possibilities for the future!

"What do ya think about the job?" Gourry asked her. He had no idea what is was that Lina did in the 'film' industry, but he was embarrassed to let Amelia know that he and Lina hadn't even talked about it. He had wanted Lina to be open and tell him about her job, rather than being the one to give her the 'second degree' to force it out of her. "Thinking of Lina 'round all those actor-type people... It bugs me. I don't like it much."

But Amelia knew what Gourry really meant, she thought. She knew that he didn't like Xel hanging around Lina so much, so she told him, "It's just a job for the summer, Mr. Gourry. Come fall, she's going to college and that's that. The only boy she goes out with is you, you know."

"That right? Not Xel?" He was willing to hope.

"Nope!" she whispered in his ear with a giggle. Not yet.

Gourry looked relieved, and Amelia seemed happy as they continued to watch the movie to its end.

Beyond the door, two figures moved off down the hallway. "I am going to kill her. I warned her, I told her, I made her promise me to never, ever, have anything to do with that terrible man, and now she has!"

"Well at least _your _little sister is home now. Mine's out with the _both_ of them! Death...she'll beg for death by the time I'm through with her!"

Xelloss couldn't keep his hands off of Lina. In the pool they played a tag game, a keep away ball game, a toss-the-girl as-far-as-you-can game, and still he couldn't get enough of her. Lina found his fun, upbeat attitude to be a great change of pace from her last date with Gourry. Gourry was getting too serious and demanding, but mostly he didn't have anything interesting to say.

She liked the feel of Xel's strong, but lithe, arms around her; his lean frame, and youthful overall appearance belied his true age, but was deeply exciting. With his hair wet and swept off his face, she could really get a good look at him. She sought out his narrow, secretive eyes glittering purple and bright from the reflected pool lights. His skin was pale and clear and his fine features, more feminine than manly, gave him a gentle, refined look. Yes, he was a little aggressive, but now she found that flattering. Although he had his choice of girls, he was giving her his undivided attention. Of course, why not? Maybe she wasn't a full-figured girl, but she was the smartest and most beautiful!

By the time they were out of the pool and into dressing rooms to change for dinner, Xelloss could have recited her measurements to within a centimeter of precision.

While everyone helped themselves from the ample buffet, Gaav made the rounds greeting each person individually and opening his presents whenever he passed the laden table of gifts. His striking gold and orange, polka dot bandana and matching surf shorts, 10-gallon cowboy hat, and mustard terry bathrobe wavered between tastelessly showy and stylishly _avant-garde_. If next week half the men were sporting a western look, then he was a trend setter. If not, then he was a harmless barbarian.

"Zel, my boy, take off that hood and live a little. Go for a swim. It's dark and nobody here would dare to say a thing." He bent a few inches closer to Zelgadiss' ear, unnecessarily because even lowered his voice carried across the wide patio, and whispered conspiratorially, "they all owe me or work for me, you see. Hah! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

Zel winced. "No thanks." He held out a tiny box tied in twine from the autopsy room. "Um, here's a present. From me."

Gaav fumbled with the box in his big hands, crushing it flat. He blew away the fragments of the cardboard box and stared at the remains: shining tombstone cufflinks. "Rest In Peace... Well gaawl-dang! Will ya'll lookit these! Purdy as you could ever want! Now, I'll just haveta go put on a shirt and show'em off! Thank you, my boy!"

Zel braced himself for the slap on the back that was sure to came, and when it did, picked himself off the ground and gasped, "Don't forget the pants..." then filled a plate with food and went looking for Valgaav.

He found him, and then wished he hadn't. Zel watched Valgaav dance from a well hidden location behind a potted palm. Valgaav seemed happy. He was a good dancer, something Zelgadiss hadn't given much thought to since Valgaav had not danced at the party he and Xel had thrown; he had been the one who preferred to watch. But he was dancing now with little inhibition, and with a pair of boys. Thinking that this was something Gaav would not be pleased to see, Zel searched out Xel, and then raced off in that direction.

"Xel," he called out when he was close. "I need your help here."

Xel and Lina had just settled in at a table, forks aloft. "Okay, sure, I'll be a few minutes and then..."

"No, _now_. It's...important," Zelgadiss insisted. "Valgaav..."

Xel rose from his chair, "Excuse me, Lina. I'll be right back No, don't trouble yourself. Enjoy your dinner. I won't be a moment."

Lina, mouth too full to speak, simply waved them both off.

"He's over with the music and dancing," Zelgadiss explained. "Xel, he's dancing with...boys."

"Don't look so scandalized, Zelgadiss. He's probably been drinking. Nahga got him started. He was turning into a real party animal. Okay, you stay here, and I'll go in for him."

Xel was right about his cousin; Valgaav was drunk. Pretending to cut in and join the dancing, Xel was able to direct Valgaav out of the circle and to the table with Zelgadiss.

"One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floooooor!" was all Valgaav uttered before he collapsed.

Zelgadiss helped roll him under the table and promised to guard him from his father's eyes so that Xel could get back to Lina. "I'll check on your progress from time to time," Xel promised, and then hurried off.

Zelgadiss waited until Valgaav crawled out from under the table with a groan, and then offered to get him some coffee. "'kay..."

Xel, meanwhile, felt that he was making progress with Lina. She was dancing with him, and she had brushed off two other men who had made overtures.

"Did you know that a murder is committed in the City-State of Seyruun every 23 minutes, which makes about 22852 murders each year?" he asked.

"Sure, I keep stats like that in my head," she said amicably, then in a mocking tone added, "especially murder statistics."

"I thought you might, because you are killing _me_."

"You said before that I was driving you crazy."

"You are. You'll be the death of me," Xel said in a breathy voice, and wrapped both arms around her loosely, which made Lina laugh! And he laughed with her, delighting in her every undulating movement.

It was getting late when he and Lina joined Zelgadiss, Valgaav, and Gaav with a host of others who had pulled up their tables and chairs to listen to Gaav tell his jokes. Valgaav, unused to alcohol, was alternating between inserting stupid remarks into the flow of conversation and sleeping on his arms, which were folded on the table. Zelgadiss pulled his hood further over his head to pitch his face in shadow. It discouraged the curious.

Xelloss and Lina were smiling and speaking to one another. Zelgadiss tried not to watch them. Instead, he listened in on what Gaav was saying.

"Oh sure, well you know it will be a bad day when your blind date turns out to be your ex-wife! Let me tell you about that one..."

Valgaav did not want to hear about his father's multitudes of conquests. His mother lived in Atlas City, having moved there after her divorce from Gaav. She had been his third wife, and now he was working on number four. The older brothers, who had moved out recently, were the product of Gaav's previous two marriages.

It was something about Xel's arm snaking around Lina, which ignited Valgaav's shortening fuse, and set him off. "You don't _know_ bad days... Hey Xel, remember when your car payment, house payment, **and** girlfriend were all three months overdue?"

Xel's head snapped around to attention. So, Val was going to play dirty tonight, was he? Well, he had picked the wrong part of the family to pick a fight with. He let loose with an attack of his own. "It was nothing like that time you started to pick up the clothes you wore home from the party that one night... and there _weren't_ any."

The crowd of listeners wheezed and laughed. Even Gaav guffawed and slapped his knees with his hands. "Good one!"

Zelgadiss, thinking that things were escalating dangerously, boldly tried a joke of his own. "Don't those messages that your car flashes at you when you turn the ignition bug you? L-like 'door's ajar'? The door's a door, not a jar, for gods-sakes! A-and then it has the gall to call you an 'air bag.'" Drawing all the attention to himself, embarrassed him and made his voice become shaky.

There was a snickering and polite chuckling in response.

Nothing had changed between Valgaav and Xel. Valgaav raised his lip in a sneer, "Oh yeah...sure. But it was nothing like the other night, you know... when your new lover called to tell you 'last night was terrific!' ... and you remembered that you were home by yourself!"

"Close yer mouth there, Xelloss," Gaav said in a laugh. "It's... _a jar! _Har, har, har!"

"Air bag!" everyone shouted at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah..." Xel flipped a pretzel at Valgaav to make sure he was awake. "You put both contact lenses in the same eye; that was a bad start to the day, remember? And then you realized that you weren't at home, and could focus well enough to see that the phone number on the bathroom wall of the bar was yours. Trouble was, it wasn't your ordinary bar..."

At which point Valgaav lunged over the table to grab Xelloss by the shirt, and pound his fist into his smiling visage. Lina jumped onto the table, then onto Val's back to punch from a better angle and with better leverage. Zelgadiss tried to pull Valgaav and Lina away. It took the strength and size of Gaav to shove the opponents apart. He sent Zelgadiss, Lina and Xel home, reserving the honor to take his own boy home, after a stern lecture on proper party behavior. "If you can't hold yer liquor, don't drink!"

Xel, Lina, and Zelgadiss were quiet on the ride home. Lina was thinking about the ribbing both Xel and Valgaav had given one another. It was a fuzzy division between what was the truth and what was exaggerated. Xel wasn't such a nice guy, but nor was Valgaav. She liked them both all the more for it. It made them all the more interesting.

"I had a good time," she said to Xel. "Thanks for the invite! I haven't been in a pool all summer, until tonight."

"Glad you liked it." Xel grazed her knee with a hand before returning it to the steering wheel.

"I was expecting to see Eris there," Zelgadiss said to Xel. "I recognized others from work, like Vurumagen."

"She was conspicuousby her absence," Xel agreed. "I'll bet she was avoiding us. Too bad. I'll be invading her little sanctuary tomorrow, or is that today? Is it that late?"

"Yeah, it's late. You going to... see Eris?" Lina wasn't certain if she liked that idea, or why it bothered her. She wasn't jealous or anything.

"He wants to drill Rezo about that guy...Dilgear," Zelgadiss broke in. "You are helping Amelia hypnotize me. I'll come with Valgaav, if he's okay in the morning."

That was okay with Lina. Xel parked the car and hopped out to walk her to her door.

"I can walk there by myself. Don't knock yourself out," she told him.

"I'm not coming along for the exercise. You never know who might be lurking in the bushes by your door."

"Yeah." She unlocked her door. "Well, thanks and 'night."

"Lina," Xelloss hooked her retreating waist with an arm and drew her close. She backed up against the door jam and he caged her with his arms, one on each side of her head.

"Um, you're crowding me."

"Sorry, but if I don't you'll disappear before I get my goodnight kiss."

His directness startled her. She turned up her head, and he kissed her. She turned her head aside, and he kissed her cheek, then her neck. "Xel, let me go now. That's enough."

"Okay, Lina; that is, unless you want to invite me in?"

"You got Zelly waiting out in the car..."

"He won't mind..." Xel interrupted her.

"Oh, yes he would mind, but that's not the only reason you are not coming in, and you know it. It's not my fascinating conversation that you want now, and I have no shared interest in what you want do, believe me, so let me go before I pound you flat." Lina said this with such determination that the larger, stronger Xelloss backed off, certain that she could do him some damage.

"Okay. I'll go. I have never overstayed my welcome. I'll see you tomorrow, perhaps, but the next day is our first bowling tournament, so I'll drive you—if that meets with your approval?"

He smile was charming, so she smiled back. "Sure, later."

* * *

The next day Xelloss left early to pay Rezo and Eris a visit. 

Valgaav was nursing a bad headache, so Zelgadiss made him coffee and gave him a couple of aspirins. "Take them and lie down for twenty minutes. While that starts working, I'll make you breakfast. I need you to take me over to Amelia's. Ah, she said she hoped you'd come, anyway, and I'd like you there to, well, I'm not totally sure about the hypnotism thing."

Valgaav nodded, downed the coffee and pills in one searing gulp, and then trooped off to stretch out on the sofa. No one had to tell him to get up. The pervasive smell of fried bacon and hot buttered toast drove him from his comfortable cushion faster than could any demand.

"Man, I don't get how to make it all come out right at the same time. You got bacon, toast and an omelet just perfect."

Zelgadiss blushed and murmured a quiet "thanks", then sat to eat his own. He was uncomfortable about the evening before: the fighting, Valgaav's behavior, and especially being resentful about it. He should have tossed back a couple brews and partied as well. But he hadn't, and now he sat in judgment, hating himself for it.

Neither young man was the type to want to talk about it, so they ate in silence. When Zel stood to wash his dishes, he mentioned, "We have that stupid play practice later on, too. And was I hearing right that we have a bowling tournament game tomorrow? That soon?"

Valgaav said, "Yeah. Listen, about last night--"

"It's okay. Not my business."

"I was missing...someone... and I fell back onto old habits, that's all."

Zelgadiss wondered which old habits he meant and was dying to know who he had 'missed', but kept his mouth shut. He was startled when Valgaav grabbed him by the arm and turned him around to face him. "Lots of old habits." He paused, waiting for Zelgadiss to meet his eyes.

"Why should I care if you get drunk? It was the fighting with Xel I hated," Zelgadiss said at last. It was a partial lie, but they both knew it.

"I know; we do that a lot, though. Like brothers who know each others little secrets and like the chance to rub one another's face in them occasionally. Okay?"

Zelgadiss nodded, "Fine, then. We should go."

Valgaav didn't move. He still had a hold of Zel's arm as a devilish grin spread to his face. "So, my dancing with other guys didn't bother you, then? I got that straight?"

Zelgadiss gave away his thoughts when he snatched away his arm and stepped back impulsively. "N-no! Or yes... whatever. Do what you want."

Valgaav laughed as if it was the biggest joke he'd heard in a long time. "Ho, ho, hooo we just have got to get you to Atlas City and really shake you up!"

He whisked his keys off the counter and loped to the door. "Yeah, next weekend, Atlas City, or the next, depends."

Zelgadiss, sporting his hoodie and a blush, trotted in his wake. "I'd like that, you know. I've never been there."

"Yer shitting me. I thought you were going to go to the college there?"

"Well, yeah, I was. I've never been there, though. I just applied and got in. I figured it was big, and I'd see it all sooner or later. 'Course now I don't think I'll be going..."

Valgaav opened the garage and hopped into his SUV. "Then it's a date."

Zelgadiss' hand froze to the door handle of the car. "A whaat?"

Valgaav cracked up. He thought teasing Zelgadiss was a whole heck of a lot more fun than Xel. "Shit, Zel...good thing I never had a little bro. Get in and stop looking so shitfaced."

* * *

Xel was greeted at the Greywords' residence by a stiff, unfriendly Miss Eris. "What are you doing here?" 

"And a good morning to you too!" he said brightly.

"It _was_. So?"

"I think you owe me your undivided attention for a few minutes."

Eris stepped aside, and gestured for Xel to enter the front room. This time she waited patiently for him to speak. He would never forget that he had caught her illegally using the cadaver keep. It didn't matter if it was for a good cause or extra cash on the side; she owed him for his silence.

"So, how are you?" he asked.

"Fine, thank you."

"And... Rezo?"

"Fine. Thank you for asking. If there isn't anything else...?"

"Fine, you say? May I see him? Better yet, would you go tell him I'm here? It is him, actually, that I am here to see."

Eris did not want to do that, and she made no move to leave the room to inform Rezo of Xel's presence. "Xelloss... he..."

"I am right here. You are Xelloss Metallium, correct?" Rezo was standing in the entry from the adjoining hall, leaning slightly on a cane. "My grandson is staying with you and your cousin." He took a deep breath, and since Xel didn't interrupt, he asked, "How is he?"

Xel hadn't said anything because he was examining the man before him. He hadn't seen Rezo more than a handful of times before, but there was something not right about the man. He moved all right, but it was the tilt of his head and the fact that he was sporting dark glasses in the house that gave his impairment away. Rezo was blind!

"Zelgadiss? Why don't you come over and see for yourself? Or is that a problem for you?" Xel smiled at Eris, who returned a sour face.

"I..." Rezo's shoulders slumped a fraction of an inch, and then he sighed. "I lost my sight in the accident. I haven't been out. I won't go out. I have my pride. I won't be half a man for others to laugh at."

"That's nice. Listen, I came to get some information on a person who works for Zanaffar—name of Dilgear. You ever heard of a _Dilgear?_" Xel stood arms folded across his chest, and watched Rezo for his reaction.

"Dilgear? Dil-gear. No, I don't know the name. It's a big place. Are you certain that he's a member of the special operations staff?"

Xel smiled. "I'm not even certain he is a he," he said. That was a lie, of course. "But you seem to be."

Rezo shook his head. "No! I just assumed!" He asserted control of himself, and then said in a calmer tone of voice, "I don't know the man, but if it's important, I could make some calls. See if I can put you in touch with him."

"That's okay; he's dead. And since you've been at home exclusively-- you have been here at _all_ times, right? Good. Then you didn't murder him, but someone did, and dumped him in your lab's salt tank. That _is_ a mystery, isn't it?" Xel paused, but no one answered him, so he went on, moving his arms to his back and pacing. "But that's not what interests me about the man. No, what I want to know is what he had to do with your accident, or more specifically, Zelgadiss' accident, because Zelgadiss helped ID Dilgear. He recognized the name. Unfortunately..." Xel paused mid thought. There was no reason to give away information. He had come to get it. "But I think that I won't tell you the rest. Call it...a secret. It is Zelgadiss' personal problem, and if you wish to learn more you will have to talk to him, in person, if you get my drift?"

"As I told you already, I don't know the man, but I will see what I can learn." Rezo swayed slightly, and Eris rushed to his side.

"Would you like me to make tea? I could use something." She was careful to not imply that the man was an invalid.

"Not for me, thanks," Xel said lightly. "I'm leaving." He made it to the hallway, then turned back and asked in an off-handed manner, "Just how is it that Zelgadiss and I are related? I forget."

"Some distant relative or other. Probably someone on the other side. No one I know or ever cared to look up." By which Rezo meant that he wouldn't say.

"Ah," Xel sighed, wondering if Rezo meant 'the other side of the moon.' "Thanks. Too bad we've all grown so far apart. Well, ciao!" Xel let himself out the door, roared off to do some shopping, and then join the others at Amelia's, if they were still there.

* * *

"Now sit and relax. That's the first and most important step," Amelia told Zelgadiss. 

"I am relaxed. Can we just get on with this?" He was nervous, and he knew it would show the longer he had to wait and worry about it. He did not know what he might say or do. He hated losing control or looking foolish. He was much like his grandfather in that way. He was also afraid of her now. He was unsure whether or not to invite her out someplace or just continue to see her casually with his other friends. If he asked her out, then she might turn him down and that was his deepest fear. If Amelia rejected him, then he really was doomed for life, he decided.

Amelia widened her eyes, and gave him a 'I'm trying to, you idiot!' look. "Now, close your eyes and listen to my voice. You are getting sleep-py, slee-py, sleeeeee-py... Mr. Zelgadiss! Your eyes must stay closed!"

"Aren't you going to swing some sparkly thing from a string to put me under?" The more he brooded over dating Amelia, the increasingly anxious he became, which made him tenser, until he was completely unable to relax.

"Some...? Oh, I know what you mean! A coin maybe? Well, no. I don't have anything but a cameo necklace, which is really pretty. It was a gift from my daddy. Would you like me to get that?"

"Will it help?" Zel asked hopefully. He needed something to help him unwind.

"I don't think it will."

"Hey, 'melia! Try this!" Lina tossed her a chain from her pants pocket; a glittering gold pendant landed in Amelia's hand.

"Thanks. Okay, then just keep your eye on the... the... object and feel sleepy..." Amelia tried again, swinging the chain pendulum-like.

"Where'd you get that?" Valgaav snatched it out of Amelia's hand and jumped to his feet. "Lina! This is evidence! It was supposed to be locked up with the body for the investigators to take! Damnit, you could get us into a shitload of trouble!"

Amelia's eyes grew big as saucers. "Body?"

Lina _might _have at least _tried_ to look a _little_ chagrined, but she didn't. "How the hell should I know how it got into my pocket? Maybe it fell in there by mistake. I'll just drive it on over later."

"The cadaver will have already been picked up by now," Valgaav said slowly. He was mad.

"Cadaver?" Amelia mouthed in silence. What were they talking about?

"Okay, then I'll drive it by the police station and tell them it fell out on the floor and I found it and they should thank me for being so honest and bringing it in. Well, shouldn't they? I _could_ just keep it!"

Amelia closed her eyes. She would not ask. She would drill and grill later. Now, she had to be cool and calm for Zelgadiss, despite the jarring conversation in the next room. "Relaaaaax. Think of floating on a wide, slow river. Floating, flooooooating on and on and on..."

Zelgadiss decided that he liked the sound of Amelia's voice so close to his ear. He liked the thought of having her near, touchable. He imagined them floating on a wide lake; the oars of the rowboat still at the sides. He knew where he could rent a boat. He would ask her to come with him. Yes, he would ask Amelia out as soon as he could move...

"_No! _No, you can't do that. It's in the report. Okay, I'll write a note and you can take my car. And if you get thrown in jail, call me so I can get my car back."

"You're so nice," Lina said with a smirk, and waited for Valgaav to write out his note.

He muttered while he wrote. "This absolves the funeral home of all knowledge, I hope, of what you did..."

"And..." _Funeral home?_ Amelia wondered what Lina and Valgaav were discussing. "floating... You are... funeral... ah... floating and floooating... on and on..."

"Didn't!" Lina reasserted.

"Or_ claim_ you didn't do. Here're the keys, drive slow; it has a big engine."

Meanwhile, Zelgadiss fell under the spell of Amelia's monotonous voice, floating on sparkling water.

"I did it!" she said in a hushed voiced.

Valgaav looked Zelgadiss over. "He's asleep."

"He's in a hypnotic state," Amelia insisted.

"No, I meant asleep, **_asleep_**, as in taking a nap. He's used to sleeping this time of day and he was out late last night."

Amelia's face sagged. "Oh. Well, I tried."

With Lina gone and Zelgadiss asleep, Amelia found herself entertaining Valgaav alone. "We should leave him be, I guess. Would you like something to eat?" She was sure all guys liked to eat.

"No," he answered. "But I'd take a drink if you offered it."

"You got it!" she said and popped up from the floor. "You can choose something from the kitchen.

He took that to mean 'follow me,' so he rose also. He admired her cute figure, bouncy personality, and thoughtful nature, but at the moment he was concentrating on not being overly aggressive and frightening her.

Gourry's words repeated through Amelia's head. Valgaav liked her, that's what he had said. Amelia decided that he must be shy, and that she should exert herself to make him come out of his shell. "I can tell your future, too," she told him.

"Oh yeah?" he smiled and finished his lemonade in one long swig. "How do you do that?"

Amelia filled his glass to the brim, as she told him, "Palm reading. I'll need your right hand."

He found it to be a sensuous experience. Her tiny, cool fingers ran along his skin, outlining calluses formed by climbing and comparing lengths of creases and lines.

"This one is your life line. I can tell you'll live a long time."

"How's that?"

"See how it wraps around to the side of your hand?" Her eyes were large, shining, and eager for his approval.

"Yeah, so I'll live long, okay. What e-else?" His voice cracked. Her touch was sending tingles through his entire body.

"Um, well this is your love line and it crosses your life line here."

"Here?" Valgaav touched his forefinger from his free hand to hers. She didn't move away, in fact, she drew a little circle on his palm with the tip, while still keeping contact with his finger. Now he was sure that she was flirting with him.

"Which is good because that means you'll find true love in the near future."

"I'm sold." He snapped his hand closed over hers, catching her finger. "Gotcha!"

Amelia giggled and wiggled it free. When he opened his hand flat, she knew he was playing a game with her, so she poked at the center of his palm, and pulled back quickly. "Missed!" she cried out when he snapped his hand shut on an empty palm.

They were both grinning and laughing as they played their silly game where the point was to get closer.

* * *

Xelloss pulled up to the front of Amelia's house just as Lina was getting out of Valgaav's car. "Hey, you stealing cars now?" 

Lina spun around, and when she saw that it was Xel approaching, laughed and quipped, "Yeah, and I thought I'd start my life of crime stealing your cousin's. You won't tell on me, will ya?"

"My lips," he said as he pulled her closer. "... are sealed." Then followeda long pause, by which time he had his lips sealed upon hers. He kissed her gently, parting his lips slightly.

"Geez, Xelloss!" Lina pushed him backwards. "Right out here where everyone can see?"

He simply smiled, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Who's to see?"

* * *

Inside, Valgaav trapped Amelia's hand for the last time. Enough of that game. He held on and pulled steadily. He pulled Amelia onto his lap. "You are short. You hardly make it up to my nose." 

That made Amelia turn to face him by placing her hands on his shoulders and looking up. Their eyes met. "I can, too," she asserted weakly.

"Uh, huh..." Valgaav hugged her closer and bent those last few inches until their lips met. He paused only long enough to make certain she was willing, and then closed his eyes and kissed her.

"Mr. Valgaav?" she asked, breaking contact.

"Um?"

"What were you guys doing with dead bodies at a funeral home? Was it for play practice? You know, to look like zombies?"

He straightened so abruptly, he nearly dropped Amelia. He tightened his hold and drew a deep breath. "Ah, yes and no... you see... Play practice? Shit, we got that now! We're gonna be late!"

* * *

Outside, a voice shook Lina to her core. "Yeah, just _who_ are you afraid might see you?" 

"Aaaaaahhh!"

* * *

While inside, another unwanted visitor put in her own two cents' worth. "Ohhh, ho, ho, ho, hooooo! What have we here? I see one dead man." 

"Gracie!"

"N-Nahga?"

Luna kicked in the front door, and pushed Lina in with one arm and Xel with the other. "Start saying your prayers, you bastard. Oh, yeah, you don't know any. Well, too baaaaad."

By which time, Zelgadiss' slumber was broken. He sat up, wondering where he was. _Amelia's. _He wondered what the screaming was about. _Trouble?_ He crawled half-awake off the couch and wobbled to the kitchen doorway, from which the yelling originated. "What the hell is going on in here?"

His heart stopped for a second. Amelia was on Valgaav's lap. Her lips glistened and her cheeks were flushed, as if they had been kissing. She liked _Valgaav_.

Luna and Nahga looked up at the silver-haired, mottled-blue-skinned alien who had just wandered into the room, and both gaped, aghast at the sight. Xel saw his chance and made for the door. Valgaav was a half-step behind him, nearly trampling Zelgadiss in the process.

"Come on," Valgaav grabbed Zelgadiss' arm and dragged him along. "It's safe to say, the party's over."

He realized, then, that Lina still had his car keys, but was not going back to get them. "Go for the back seat," he yelled at the still-stunned Zelgadiss. "Xel, I need a ride."

Xelloss nodded curtly then rammed his car I gear. "This was a bad, but inevitable, turn of events," he said, although he followed that gentlemanly observation with a re-phrasing of his true sentiments in a single word. "F#$&!" He pounded the dashboard with his fist hard enough to dent it slightly. "F&$#$ it all anyway! Why does life have to get so complicated?"

"Because you make it that way. Oh, turn left at the next stop."

"Home's to the right..."

"Play practice is left, or have you forgotten about that?" Now that Xel was in a fix and unhappy, Valgaav's mood had improved tremendously.

"Play practice! Oh, I had forgotten about that. Okay. To the theater! From one absurdity to another, what could happen next?"

To which both Zelgadiss and Valgaav replied, "Something worse."

End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 11


	12. Bowled Over

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 12 **– Bowled Over –

"Did you know that:

On average, people fear spiders more than they do dying? However, statistically you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by the bite of a poisonous spider."

* * *

"I never thought of you as dumb, but Lina, what the hell were you thinking letting that monster paw you like that? And after all my warnings! He doesn't really want you." Luna was holding back some of her fury now. She and her younger sister had been screaming at one another for ten minutes already, and she was getting no place that way.

"You mean, he doesn't really want _you! _I don't need you to lecture me about my friends or my choices!" Lina told her older sister. She could tell that she hurt Luna's feeling with her first remark, and so she eased off as well. "I know Xel's a bit of a _lech_, and that he's nearly ten years older than me, and that 'he did you wrong' so he's evil incarnate, but..."

"Are you actually trying to debate this?" Luna threw up her arms in disgust.

"But I report to him at work, he's a friend, and I like being around him," Lina finished. "He's funny and smart and different. I can handle the hands; I'm not going to sleep with him. It's just a lark, okay? I'm not you. I'm me, so leave me alone!"

Luna shook her head, "He's persistent. You're out of your league with that guy."

"I'm tougher than him any day. Besides," Lina smiled coyly and flipped her hair around, "I have a boyfriend, of sorts, who ought to be calling me any second, and it's not Xelloss."

"You do?" This surprised Luna. Her little sister had always been a tomboy-type with no interest in boys at all. It had taken a few minutes, but Lina's other statement finally soaked in. "What did you mean by 'report to him' at..."

"Yeah, kinda a boyfriend, if you have to put it that way at all..." The rest of Lina's comment was interrupted by the ringing phone. "I'll get it! Hi. Yeah? I can do that, sure. Okay, later." She set down the receiver. "That was him. Gourry. You know, tall, blonde, and good-looking guy at the athletic club. Graduated this year. We're going to catch a movie tomorrow, maybe something else earlier. See? So, butt out!"

"Lina, what is your work?" Luna repeated.

"Oh, I pick up dead bodies and haul them to the funeral home. Pretty light stuff, so far."

While Lina and Luna were arguing in the front room, Amelia and Nahga were having it out in the kitchen. "I told you never, NEVER to have boys over when father or I'm not here," Nahga was scolding her younger sister. "Who knows what might have happened if I hadn't come in when I did? That man was working his moves, I'll tell you. He'da had you out of your clothes and, well... He's way too mature for you and moody with a bad temper, and is generally too low-brow, what with his disgusting family business and all."

Amelia was bristling with indignation. "You don't live here any more, and you are not my mother! I wasn't here alone; I had friends over. And Valgaav is nice to me. He didn't do anything but kiss me, and I practically had to be the first to do that. And daddy knows about his film work, and, although it's not much yet, he'll be a superstar in no time!"

"Film work?" Nahga's asked in wonder, then it occurred to her that he'd been lying to Amelia about his true job. Her eyes narrowed as an evil grin slashed her face. "Oh, ho, ho, hooooooo! Film...? Ohhhhhh hooooo... Is that what he told you? Well, add 'liar' to that list of attributes."

"Well, I haven't known him long, but Valgaav is no liar, Gracie. I was at the theater when he and his cousins tried out and I heard the director tell them to come back, AND that's where they were running off to when you so rudely interrupted us!"

"Actor! He fixes up dead people for funerals! His father is Gaav Rubyeye. Come on, you know... Rubyeye Mortuary!" Nahga whooped it up.

At that moment, Luna and Lina thundered in, Luna shouting, "My stupid little sister is working for Gaav with Val-boy and Xelly-pit! She's driving corpses around!"

"Oh, ho, hooo! Mine thought Vally and Xel-poo were film stars! She even got daddy to help them get a job in a play!"

"What a hoot!" Luna and Nahga fell into one another's arms, and laughed til they cried.

Lina and Amelia looked at one another. "So, you work with Mr. Valgaav and Mr. Xelloss ...at a _funeral home?_" Amelia asked.

"Ah, yeah, and Zel, too. They wanted to keep it a secret because it's not so glamorous, I guess. I think it's intriguing and _en_grossing...not gross at all. I was going to tell you soon, Amelia, if Val didn't. Ah... sorry you had to find out this way."

Any hurt Amelia may have felt at being excluded vanished. She was a cheerful girl willing to think the best of everyone and of their motives. "That's okay. I'm glad I know now, and I think I understand why he wouldn't want me to know. But, do you think they are still in the play, too? I mean, I know they're really in a play. I saw them try out for it."

"Yep. And Zel is training with Val, and Xelloss has been showing me what to do and we're on a bowling team... OH..." It suddenly occurred to Lina that Gourry and others would be expecting her and Zelgadiss to play with them, as was usual. "We aren't in the same bowling league as you anymore."

"You mean, you and Mr. Zelgadiss will be bowling against Miss Sylphiel and me... and now Miss Filia, too? Oh, that's horrible! Even with Miss Martina and Mr. Zangalus and Mr. Gourry on the team... Oh, Miss Lina! Does _he_ know you're not on his team?"

"No. I guess I gotta tell him when we go out tonight." Lina was not looking forward to that.

* * *

Over ice cream sundaes, Lina broke the news to Gourry. "Ah, about my new job..."

Gourry looked through his bangs catching her expression. This is what he had been waiting for. "Uh, huh."

"I work the graveyard shift with Xel, Val, and Zelly at the Rubyeye Mortuary and Funeral Home. Amelia knows, and now you. The guys wanted to keep their job quiet because they figured we'd think they were weird, and we'd all avoid them."

"Oh," Gourry mulled that all over. "You work in a...funeral home, you say?

"Yeah, I just got hired to pick up dead bodies and bring 'em in. Zelgadiss is learning all the cool stuff. Val's in charge and Xel is a pathologist, but he takes orders from Val."

"You like it, then?"

"Oh yeah, what's not to like, ya know? Mystery cadavers with unknown causes of death...like this one guy I hauled out of a tank of water. He may have had something to do with Zelly's accident, at least he thinks so."

"Sounds dangerous, Lina. If murder's involved, you shouldn't go out alone. I could help out."

"Really? That would be nice, but Val says Xel will go with me for training, then Zelgadiss. Anyway, what I was getting around to was telling you... was... about the bowling league."

"Oh, yeah," Gourry brightened. He looked forward to playing with Lina on his team this time. "When's the first game? Filia decided to join up with Amelia and us."

"Weeeel... It's like this... Zelgadiss and I are in a new league, with Val and..."

"Don't tell me-- that Xel guy, too."

"Yeah, him. In fact, Val's dad, who owns the place we work, hired Xel just for his bowling, or so they say. It's hard to say if that was really true or not, but even though Val says it's just a game, his dad takes it pretty seriously. We play tomorrow!"

"Oh," his mouth tightened and he stared into the distance.

"Hey, we can do other things together. Maybe we'll meet at a game or two?"

"Yeah, there's that." Gourry couldn't hide his disappointment. "I was thinking we'd see each other everyday once it was summer, what with no school for either of us. But so far it hasn't been more'n once a week or twice, sometimes." He glanced sideways at her, unhappiness in his eyes.

"The summer's not over. Who knows, right?" Lina didn't want to talk gloom and doom. She was of the moment and craved excitement and action, and food, of course. "Say, wanna see if you can beat me on the pinball machine over there?"

"They got one of those? Yeah, sure." Gourry wanted Lina to be happy, regardless, but he could not afford to let her escape so lightly. "But I want you to set aside some time for us. Can you do that? I want Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, when we don't have league games. That okay with you?"

His face was eager, but the shadow in his eyes betrayed that her acceptance mattered to him, and he be no means took it for granted. This was pre-arranging social engagements, things to do together for pleasure, not just a casual date now and then. It was the first time he had done such a thing, and they were both suddenly acutely aware of it. It meant that they were indeed boyfriend and girlfriend.

Lina found herself blushing; the color was hot in her cheeks. She wanted to behave with lightness, as if his offer meant nothing unusual, and she was not managing it. She was awkward again.

"Well, yeah. I guess I can do that. Mostly."

She saw the light in his eyes, the pleasure in his face, and suddenly Lina was absolutely certain how very much it mattered to him, how much _she_ mattered to him. Not just a conquest, not a personal challenge, but a treasure. She was his greatest treasure, a daunting realization. Her eyes swept over his features. His handsome face was dusted with fine golden hair, heavier over his upper lip where he shaved. He was waiting for her to give him a sign of how she felt. Lina leaned forward very quickly and kissed him on the cheek.

Before she could step back, his arm tightened around her and he turned his head slightly so that he could kiss her on the lips. He was very gentle, but he had no intention of letting he go until he was ready.

It wasn't until she was home and lying awake in bed mulling over the events of the day that Lina wondered how she could justify juggling both Gourry and Xelloss. She had feelings for both men, different ones and overlapping ones and totally confusing ones. Xelloss made her laugh. He was witty, sophisticated in the ways of the world, a PhD, sexy, and enigmatic, concealing much of his life and his innermost thoughts. Gourry made her feel comfortable. He was dependable, uncomplicated, working up the management levels in an athletic club, sexy, and open, concealing little of his life or his innermost thoughts.

She decided that she could have them both, for awhile anyway, and see how they wore with time.

* * *

After the stomping around pretending to be a zombie for a few hours, Zelgadiss parted ways with his cousins to pay his friend Gourry a visit. He dropped by his house, but Gourry was not in. He was out with Lina. That was nice, Zelgadiss thought, and sat on the curb wondering what to do with himself. He blocked Amelia from his brain. It had been a blow, especially to what little self-esteem he had left, to stumble upon Valgaav and Amelia together. A car's headlights flashed in his eyes as it turned the corner and left speeding away.

For an instant, Zelgadiss was stunned by the brightness, and then he had a burred vision of a balcony and an older man talking to him. A file was shoved into his arms. "Take this to him. NOW! It's urgent. He's been waiting for this information all morning... the racquetball court. Listen, here's the pass code, mine." The phrases were jumbled, but the words clear. Another glint of shiny at the man's neck and a few parting words and his memory cut off. "Tell him Dilgear sent you."

"Dilgear!" Zelgadiss gasped. "Dilgear gave me a folder. He had on that medallion. I remember that!"

* * *

On entering Seyruun Center, the bowling lanes building, and most conspicuous person there was a fiery redhead.

Lina pulled out her shiny orange ball with golden flecks, polished to a brilliant finish, and strode confidently to her lane approach. She began a recitation beneath her breath. She was a tad superstitious, and believed that repeating a few magical words before her release would propel the ball on a deadlier course.

Aloud she yelled, "Fireball!" and send the ball spinning powerfully toward its goal, the pins at the end of the alley.

The pins flew; one crossing over to the next lane. "Yes!" she punched the air with glee. "Nothin' but deadwood!"

Lina was what was referred to as an 'area bowler'; a player who uses instinctual, subconscious adjustments as they release and throw the ball. "More common in today's bowling environment where power is often better than accuracy," Gaav explained unnecessarily to anyone that was listening. "And this was one humdinger of a powerful delivery from the newest little lady on our roster!"

The Honorable Philonel Seyruun nodded in agreement. Lina had been a member of his daughter's team; his team. Phil was this year's local youth bowling league official and Amelia's team coach and Amelia's father. He had been listening politely to Gaav's boasting, and now it was his turn. He loved all these kids, even the ones he didn't know or no longer played with him. He was an optimist and always thought the best of his fellow human beings.

"Look at that Zelgadiss fellow. Used to play for us, he did. He's playing the third arrow." Phil grinned with pride. The term 'arrow' referred to the lanes' targeting system, tinted markers embedded some fifteen feet from the foul line. He was describing to Gaav the angle, or line, Zelgadiss was using. "Mind you, he looked perfectly normal when he played for us."

Zelgadiss was feeling a bit low. He had hurried to see Amelia after his 'revelation' that Dilgear had handed him a folder before the accident occurred. He had hoped she could try the hypnosis again so that he could get to the bottom of the mystery. However, he hadn't been able to get past her sister, who had answered the door and told him to 'beat it!' He wasn't certain if Amelia herself had told her to say that. After all, Amelia had Valgaav to fixate on now, so why bother with the 'freak?' He chose a ball at random and automatically hurled it down the alley, arrow straight and on target.

Gaav shook his head. "Kids these days. Look at what my son does to his face, for the gods'sakes! Good looking young man like him painting himself like a...a...the gods only know what!" He gestured toward Valgaav, eyes lingering on the young man's excellent bowling form and long reach.

Phil nodded in understanding. Despite his harsh words, Gaav's entire demeanor expressed admiration for his son. He turned back to see the pins fly. "Strike! That's my...your Zelgadiss. And now, Martina," but her coach couldn't find the words to introduce her. He sincerely hoped that she wouldn't fall face down on the foul line, or send her ball careening into another lane, as she was apt to do in the past.

Observing Martina for a few minutes, all Gaav had to say was, "Pin bowler."

Coach Phil nodded in agreement. She was guilty of looking at the pins to aim and throw the ball. Better bowlers spotted or line bowled, like Zelgadiss. "She has drive," Phil said succinctly. "Looks like your son is next up. Fine boy."

Gaav glowed. Valgaav had hardly said a word since entering the building. He was a consistent and powerful bowler, thanks to the rock climbing which had contributed to his upper-body strength.

Xel, who had overheard what the older men were saying, although it would take a deaf person to miss a word, snickered in Lina's ear, "I wonder if he would feel the same way, had he walked in on his daughter making out with that 'fine boy'?

"You know coach Phil is Amelia's father?" Lina asked. She allowed Xel to touch her arm, but after that she avoided further physical contact. He made her arm tingle, her heart pound. She avoided his gaze; his eyes could be mesmerizing. They had certainly enticed her to let him get closer to her at the pool party than she'd allowed any guy, ever. It excited her to be so close to him, and it was going to be a long day, longer whenever Gourry showed up.

"I make it a point to know everything I can about my friends. Watch Valgaav, now. He is so psyched-out about impressing his dad that it's funny." Xel was pleased that Gourry hadn't shown up yet. She seemed a little stand-offish to him. He wanted to secure Lina's attention without interference.

Lina turned to watch the serious young man choose a pearly gray ball from a bag.

"He is zoned," Gaav remarked, as he concentrated on his son's approach and release. "He throws a semi-roller."

It was the most popular shot at the time, where the ball tracked outside of the thumb and finger holes. A semi-roller tracked lower that normal causing the ball to spin quicker. With it, he could generate more length at the expense of some power, of which he had a surplus.

"Looks like a semi-spinner," Phil said, preferring his term over Gaav's. "What a quality shot!"

It was a fine performance, honed by years of rigorous training and coaching from his father. It was a shot in which everything, the approach, release, etc. all came together in perfect timing and balance. In practice, it had nothing to do with score or results. 'Quality shots', not 'pinfall', was the goal. Valgaav, though, could bring down the pins as well.

"You are...awesome," Zelgadiss told his cousin. "Maybe I should take up rock climbing?"

Valgaav shrugged. "You'd be good. You're light and flexible and well-coordinated."

"Yeah, not to mention this new thick hide of mine can hardly be scratched," Zelgadiss said.

"Is that so? Couldn't hurt, then," Valgaav avoided further comment on Zel's appearance. He didn't want to participate in his cousin's self-pity party. "You're welcome to come with me and Sylphiel next time we go."

"I'd rather go with just you."

Valgaav looked askance at his younger cousin. "She's not judgmental."

Zel felt a blush heat his face. "I know."

"She's not afraid of personal contact."

Zel put his head in his hands, "Shut up, will you? She has no interest in me. Never will. She's a nurse and it's part of her job not to flinch at the slight of...accident victims." He stopped and noticed that Valgaav's attention was focusing just above his shoulder.

"Hi, Amelia."

Zel tensed. His stomach cramped up. He wished himself at the far end of the building.

"Hi Mr. Valgaav! Hi, Mr. Zelgadiss!" She directed her conversation at the tall green-haired young man, whose amber eyes were following her with unwavering attention. "I just wanted to tell you how impressed I was with your bowling technique. You are so sure and strong. You're great too, Mr. Zelgadiss, but I've seen you play plenty of times before."

Zel tried to disappear. He sank further back into his plastic chair, folded his arms across his chest, and then grunted something in reply.

"Thanks. You okay? Your sister cooled down yet?" Valgaav asked.

"Yes. She had no right to yell at us that way. I told her I could...like... whoever I wanted to and have friends over whenever I wanted to and not have to answer to her."

Zel cringed. She 'liked' Valgaav. She just said so. Amelia, who had always had a crush on him, now liked someone else. And it was obvious that he was not someone she wanted hanging around, but why not tell him that herself? Why use her sister to do her dirty work? He wallowed in despair a second longer. "Excuse me," he mumbled, and shot out of his chair to find the men's room.

Amelia moved to avoid being cut down. "Anyway, I'm sorry if she chased you off again."

"She didn't. I didn't go back," Valgaav told her.

"Really? Oh, well... I wonder who it **was** that she sent away? She wouldn't say. Oh, well, I gotta go get back to my team. Isn't it great that we get to play our first game together this way?"

"Yeah, sure," he said. Although we wished they could be playing on the same team instead of opposing ones.

"Oh, look! Gourry and Sylphiel finally made it!" Amelia cried out and ran to greet her tardy teammates. Valgaav stood, and then followed Amelia.

"Oh, here come our other players at last! Gourry, Sylphiel! Catch your breath, relax. The other team is up right now. Everything's all right," Coach Phil reassured them.

Gourry was the consummate athlete who competed in several sports developing lifestyle habits which enhanced his overall performance, including specific dietary and training regimens, emotional and stress management, and psychological preparation. He arrived with a virtual armory of no fewer than ten bowling balls, and Sylphiel.

"My car wouldn't start," she said in apology for their being late to arrive. "Gourry-dear was already on his way and had to turn back to get me. I'm so glad he had his cell phone with him and...he's so kind." The last was said with a sigh, or perhaps she was just out of breath from running in.

When Valgaav looked over Gourry's collection, it was with great admiration. He articulated an entire sentence, his first so far that day to anyone but Amelia. "Heavy duty _arsenal_, dude."

Gourry explained, "I've been collecting of balls since I was five and could pick one up. Each ball reacts differently so that I can adjust real fast to changing lane conditions."

Meanwhile, Xel was watching his own perfect strike go down with a smile on his face, hands in his pockets– cool and calm, relaxed and self-assured.

"You got a lot of wood with that dull axe," Filia said to Xel.

He turned to her voice, shrugged in acknowledgment, and then retrieved his signature blood red ball from the ball return. He knew from her tone of voice that she used the 'axe' term for a bowling ball in a derogatory fashion, but it didn't faze him. He had found his groove. "Triple," he smiled. Three strikes in a row, the first two from his warm-up.

"Turkey..." she returned. It meant the same thing as 'triple' in bowling lingo, but not the way she said it.

"I think I'll go for a four-bagger." He smiled, and then turned his back on her to wink back at Lina. Throwing four strikes in a row was nothing new for him, but uncommon an event in the first league game of the season. It proved he had nerves of steel, or no blood flowing through his veins.

"Give it the Fist of Justice, Amelia!" Phil shouted, demonstrating with an enthusiastic punch of his own.

Amelia was mostly a straight player, who relied on accuracy at the expense of power, which meant that she didn't hit many strikes, but picked up nearly every spare. She brought two balls. One, the pink, was for fixing her mistakes. She chose her favorite pearly-blue ball, which wasn't to heavy to begin the game, and practically tripped on her approach up the runway. She caught herself in time, returned to good form, released the ball, and followed through completely. Unfortunately, her slip-up resulted in a slow ball.

"Ooooooh, rats! A _puff ball_!" she bit back her anger, and then smiled, "Sorry guys. I'll do better next time."

"A creeper!" Zangalus said disparagingly, and then moaned for added emphasis. Her slow ones were never powerful enough to make strikes.

"Baby split. Just get the spare," Martina said sullenly. The 2-7 split was doable, and Amelia was particularly adept at getting all her spares, but it wasn't the vivid, exploding strike that they needed. Without Zelgadiss on the team, Martina figured they were doomed. Lina, well, Martina was happy to have her on a different team. Lina was a good bowler, too good ("The little show-off.) Martina wanted to be the best female on her team, and now she had that chance.

"So, aren't ya gonna say hello to me?" Martina asked Valgaav pointedly.

"Hel-lo." He looked at her still-green hair. "Any luck selling your script?"

"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I gotta taker. Lina's never gotten anyone interested in her stuff. Too highbrow, I told her. People don't want to be educated. Bor-ring. They want terror, romance, sex...you know..."

He cut her off. "That mean we don't gotta finish reading it?"

She stuck up her nose and turned away in an attempt to snub him. "It can mean anything you like. If this thing's a success, like it should be if the clowns give it the proper treatment it deserves, then I'll be rich. I got more ideas flowing from me all the time, anyway."

"Or the landfill will be enriched," a voice muttered in his head. "That's great," he muttered and stepped back to watch the far more appealing Amelia.

Amelia opened her second bowling bag and produced her working ball. This was a special ball with great spin that could produce a lot of action among the pins, breaking up splits when hit on the nose.

"You do the job for me, okay?" Amelia whispered, and then kissed the ball and sent it flying down the alley. "Yes!" she cried out. "I covered the five pin! Yay! I made the spare! That's a mark for me."

Valgaav congratulated her, and said hello to Sylphiel. Had Eris been there, it would have been her turn next, but instead, she was skipped and the opposing team was up again. "Good luck with that ball," he said to Sylphiel. "Could use a quick shine. Grab another and I'll take it over to the cleaner for you."

"Thanks, Valgaav, that's so nice of you, but I don't think it'll matter. I'm still rattled from my stupid car." She chose a different ball at random anyway.

Sylphiel sent her first ball into the gutter with a moan. "Not a good start."

Afraid of lofting the ball, she had released it with a cross-over swing. She had had a problem in the past of throwing the ball too high above the lane bed. Her next roll looked good. It was heading for the kingpin with plenty of action; an apparent perfect hit for a strike, but one pin was left standing.

"Tap," Zangalus declared succinctly.

"A blow," Martina said with undisguised disappointment.

"That's okay," Amelia patted her friend on the back. "You just got here and didn't have time for a warm up. You'll do better next time. I'm sure of it!"

"Thanks, Amelia." She looked around, and missing Zelgadiss asked, "Have you seen Zelly today?"

"Yes, I was talking to him just a minute ago and he took off to the men's room suddenly. He wasn't looking like he felt too good. I think he feels bad about not being on our team. I mean, it was very sudden for both him and Lina to jump teams, though I guess they really had no choice, their coach being their boss and all... Anyway, we were really lucky to have Filia join up!"

"I guess. Poor Zelly. I'll go talk to him, then, wherever he went."

Ironically, Vurumagen was stuck playing 'the graveyard', a derogatory term for the bowling lane that was notorious for low scores. The surface was rougher and it was more central, probably over-used. Valgaav, Xel, and Zelgadiss were smart enough to get to the center early enough to claim the better lanes. Not that it mattered that much; he was the team's worst player, even worse than Eris, who had not shown up yet.

"No Eris, Valgaav's gone to 'the dark' side, and where did Zelgadiss go?" he asked Xel as he chose his ball. "Our team grows smaller by the hour."

"Bathroom." Xel looked at his watched and thought he'd been gone too long. "You're up."

"I am?" Vurumagen checked his pants.

Xel laughed aloud, "Go roll the ball into the gutter or something."

"Been there, and done it all," Vurumagen said half-jokingly. "Better have Val go check on Zelly before _he_ changes teams. Not that Valgaav could jump teams, but it's plain that he's smitten with one or two of their female players."

"Don't worry about them. Think about your game," Xel recommended. He smiled. There was a time he had sex on his mind as much as Vurumagen, and not too long ago, either. Now he looked at Lina and felt something deeper gnawing at him. A deeper need. He pushed the feeling down and shivered.

"You okay?" Lina asked.

"Spooky," Xel said, and pointed toward Vurumagen to cover for his real feelings.

"I guess," she said weakly. She knew the man 'dressed and made up the corpses', but Xel carved them up. Which was the spookier?

First, Vurumagen rolled a 'railroad', an ugly split.

Xel winced, and then commented aloud, "High hit."

It was a solid, but too hard of a hit on the head pin near its front center, leading to the failed strike attempt. Gaav was about to put in a suggestion, but he stopped and listened to what Xel was telling Vurumagen instead.

"Try this stance to correct for your hook." Xelloss demonstrated and had the other man repeat, imitating his move as best he could.

With a hook, Vurumagen's ball, which had initially moved straight down the alley, curved towards the pin from left to right ( he was a lefthander ) on the latter part of the lane. "Oh, I see. Yes, I can correct that and get the spare, I think."

He _nearly_ did.

His score was displayed on the automatic, illuminated screen, while Filia took up her ball. Lina was preparing for turn, wiping off her ball and talking to it, so Xel idled over to offer Filia some unsought advice.

"Go for the King pin, the number **_5_** pin," Xel clarified for good measure. "It is a key pin to producing a strike. A light pocket hit or a deflected one would leave this pin still standing for a miss, so give it all you've got."

She frowned. "I don't aim for pins. I'm a line player, you cretin. Now go away and keep your wits for your own game." She missed the strike, but made a difficult spare with flair.

Other players took their turns, and Zelgadiss returned surreptitiously to roll another strike, then took a seat in the back next to Vurumagen.

Lina destroyed two pins on a spare pickup in an amazing demonstration of power bowling. How a tiny girl like her could send a ball rolling and spinning with such fury, no one understood. Xel wrapped an arm around her as he lead her back to her seat, while Gourry stood to take his turn. Xel turned and smiled, meeting Gourry's eyes. The war was on.

Vurumagen's next shots were not bad, but he missed his spare.

"It looked fine. I don't see how you blew that," Zelgadiss said tactfully, for him. He had no desire to irritate the man who had hired him.

"Not my day. But last night was marvelous," he smiled and dragged a hand through his wispy lank bangs. "You could make an improvement in it for me."

Zelgadiss hid his rising blush with his fall of silver hair. He didn't know who made him feel more uncomfortable today, Valgaav or Vurumagen. He wanted to hate Valgaav and blame him for everything that was going wrong for him, but couldn't. Vurumagen was the only person who was attracted to him, and he was a man, for gods'sakes. "Sorry, I'm not...like that."

"I know, honey. I was just pulling your leg. Trying to get your mind off your troubles."

Zelgadiss shook his head and closed his eyes. "Impossible."

"Well, don't look up. We have company and she's not here to see me," the man snickered and turned his attention to the opposing bowlers. "Now, who is that one? Zangalus? What a name..."

"Hi, Zelly. I got here late and didn't see you until now. The team's not the same without you."

Zelgadiss felt a soft warm hand on his, which startled him to react. First he looked up. She was standing in front of him; he was seated. "I miss you," she repeated in a quiet voice.

Her gentle, caring disposition cut through his defenses. His forbidding scowl succumbed to her charms and transformed into an expression of wonder, like magic. "Sylphiel?"

Her green eyes softened as she smiled back. "Uh, huh. Can I sit here for a while?"

"Ye-es," his voice cracked.

"Zangalus is what I call 'a Cranker'," Coach Phil told Gaav. "He's a power player with an exaggerated arm action to impart a massive hook."

Gaav nodded with interest.

Phil took that to mean he should continue, which he did. "His hard-hitting, big hook shot spins faster than the average speed player's, but that usually means he's less accurate and relies more on power for his scores."

Gaav rubbed his chin, feeling the beginning of stubble forming. "You don't say... Gangly feller."

Gourry disliked Zangalus and his bowling style, but kept his mouth shut about it. Zangalus had graduated in his class, and now was working full time at a job gifted to him by his father. Sure, the guy was only a car salesman, but Zangalus hadn't had to do a thing to get where he was. Gourry had worked for everything he had, and worked hard. Honest hard work. Not like that slimy, greasy-haired teammate of his. But, Gourry wouldn't say a derogatory thing about anyone, unless severely pressed. Instead, Gourry would prove his superiority with excellent form and skill.

Zangalus started deep inside line A, the strike line favored among the big hook players. He stood on a high numbered board and aimed for a lower numbered board, which for a right handed player like him meant that he started his delivery on the far left of the approach. Often he did well this way, but this time the ball hooked excessively and took the path to the pocket.

"Oooh... it's taking the scenic route," Lina observed.

Xel, comfortably ensconced at her side, laughed at her wit. She quickly met his eyes, giving him the chance he'd been waiting for. "You know, after this," he wiggled his hand to incorporate the entire game. "We should go out for something to eat."

"Yeah," she agreed, but then wondered who all he meant to out with-- all of them, or was it just to be the two of them?

Gourry looked over at Lina chatting with Xel. Although he was sure that he and she had an understanding, her continued intimacy with her co-worker disturbed him. If he let it, it might affect his game.

Zangalus' complaining interrupted what Lina was going to say to Xel next. "It's a running lane! My ball hit the lanes and ran left! Too much oil over there, see?"

Gourry hated whiners, especially one that blamed his mistakes on the lane conditions. It was embarrassing to him to have one of his teammates act so childish. Against his instincts, Gourry decided to help the other man.

"Try using a suitcase grip," Gourry suggested. He illustrated by picking up one of his bowling ball bags. "Holding the ball like you would the handle of a suitcase reduces hook." He didn't add that he thought the lane condition was just fine.

Zangalus bit back any remark he might have made had they been alone, and took his next shot. He altered his grip slightly, as Gourry had suggested, and made his follow up throw. The ball stopped its strong hooking action before entering the space between the 1-3 pins, which for a right-handed bowler was called 'the pocket', and blasted the pins helter-skelter.

"The ball died," Zangalus gasped in amazement, meaning the hook was gone completely.

"Got your spare!" Amelia and Martina cheered together.

Zangalus shot Gourry a look of alarm, wondering if he would be obliged to go thank the guy, but Gourry wasn't paying attention. His thoughts were elsewhere, across a few lanes.

Later on, Vurumagen shot another split.

"Cherry pickin' cherry picker!" Gaav announced. "You're better than that. Just picking off the front pins an' leaving the back one on a spare attempt– you call that bowlin'? Where is your mind today, boy?"

Vurumagen was nonplused by the nearness of Gaav's powerful jaw. The single gold-coated canine with its embedded diamond glittering amongst a row of teeth the size of piano keys was only mildly disturbing to a man to could make a head with half its face blown off look like it had just left the beauty salon.

He rolled his eyes and flung up his pale hands. "I really can't say what my problem is. First tourney jitters, I suppose." To get the attention off his poor performance, Vurumagen pointed out the other team's weakest player. "I am not alone. That young lady is having her problems, too. I don't know which is worse, her off-balance stance or her skin-tight, lilac pants. Poor thing."

Sylphiel had missed her spare and looked crestfallen, but this time Zelgadiss, next in turn, graciously retrieved her ball, and handed it back to her. "I can offer a few pointers, if you'd like."

"Okay," she said through a faint blush. "Take your turn first, though. I'll cheer you on."

Zelgadiss was in fine form, and he had a two-coach cheering squad for encouragement.

"Look at him 'throwing rocks'!" Coach Phil whooped, forgetting Zel was no longer on his team for a moment. "He's piling up strikes with a speed ball."

"Leaving nothing but deadwood!" Gaav finished. "Agile and quick." Hiring the blue-hued young man had been a good business decision, a warm gratifying feeling.

"That's a double. _Two_ consecutive strikes." Phil gestured broadly and struck his fist into the palm of his hand. "He just _pounds _away! Always has consistently hit his mark, though. Like that other fellow on your team, Xel."

Which turned out to be a good thing for Gaav, because Eris was a blind score. When a league bowler was 'blind' and unable find his or her way to the league game, the bowler's average was simply used, as if he or she just bowled that score, when figuring the team's total for each game. With Vurumagen's off night and Eris' below par score, Gaav would need Lina and Zelgadiss to show well.

Martina slipped and fell, but her ball rolled on to give her a tough split. She cleared the remaining pins, making her spare. If you could suffer her stupidity and stubbornness, she was a tolerable teammate.

Xelloss hit his fifth strike.

Amelia made her spare.

"Nice for _you_," Lina said coolly as she got up for her turn. "I gotta follow_ that?_"

Her words hit him like a slap in the face. Xelloss raised his eyebrows in surprise. He certainly hadn't been expecting Lina to say something like that. He had anticipated a warm, upbeat greeting filled with praise, admiration, and perhaps a touch of astonishment. "I'll work harder, and _miss_ next time," he muttered under his breath.

Lina had been rolling her signature 'fireball' strikes. This time her run ended with a 2-8 split. She stood fuming over her turn of luck.

"You can get this spare. Just watch out for the sleeper. See? That hard-to-see one in back, hidden by the pin directly in front of it," Xelloss warned her.

She nodded dismissively. She didn't really need the help. She was completely wired and in the zone with very consistent high scores. That last shot was just a fluke. She whispered a different little phrase over this ball, lending it the supernatural powers required to take down the remaining pins for the spare. She danced all the way back to her chair, catching Gourry's eye, and giving him a friendly wink.

Gourry grinned in return and gave her a sporting 'thumbs up,' which Xel observed. A sharp pull in his chest pained him. He suddenly hated Gourry for causing him a moment of jealously. He decided to do something about that, but he'd have to wait for the opportunity.

Filia proved to be a welcome asset to her team. Coach Phil was first to categorize her. "Now that young woman is a 'tweener.' She shows with more accuracy and less power than a 'cranker' like Zangalus, but also with more power than a straight player like Amelia."

Gaav had his own term. "I prefer the term 'stroker', personally. She has a fluid unforced motion after releasing the ball, unlike a 'cranker' who usually 'hits up' on the ball at the release."

Filia was shaping up to be one of the best on the team, when she was focused.

"Strike!" she heard the voices roar in approval behind her as she watched the pins drop with satisfaction.

"Very nice form, from the _rear_ angle," Xel complimented her in passing as he moved to speak to Vurumagen at the ball return. He wanted to coach the man a little before he took his next shot.

"Thanks. I just picture your face on my mark and hammer it every time."

As Filia passed by Xel, her bare arm grazed his forearm. "Ecuuuse me," she said, snapping her arm away as if she had encountered acid.

He chortled, "Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things."

They exchanged nasty smirks, and then she returned to her seat.

Sadly, on his next third turn Vurumagen rolled poorly again, managing to leave the 1-2-4-7 pins were still standing after the first ball.

"Clothesline!" Gaav and Phil simultaneously shouted.

Unfortunately, he was unable to clear them all, and so it was another _blow_ for him.

"Three splits in a row," Vurumagen moaned.

"Buzzard Three!" Gaav growled. "You can see them 'circle-ing' the score pad." (Note: the symbol for a split is a circle.)

"_Turkey_ buzzard," Vurumagen sighed dramatically, the back of his hand limp upon his forehead, eyes closed in pose of dismay.

"Well, my man, that closed out the _beer frame_. Looks like you'll be buying the drinks at break," Gaav clapped Vurumagen on the back, instantly forgiving the man for his poor showing. Their team was ahead, regardless.

The 'beer frame' had been pre-designated; the player with the lowest pin count up to that point was on to buy everyone on the team a round of some type of refreshment.

"Everyone done with the frame? Break time, then," Gaav announced. He and Phil congratulated one another on their team's performances, so far, displaying good sportsmanship and humor. No hard feelings. This wasn't an important game for either man; Gaav considered it a warm-up for the game against his sister, Zelas, coming up.

Both teams, having agreed to a short break, had regrouped at the refreshment and snack bar. After forking out for his team's drinks, Vurumagen joked, "I am having an out of money experience."

That loosened things up, and the conversations started. Filia asked Zelgadiss, "So how's the play coming along?"

"The play? Oh, yeah..." Zelgadiss clicked back to reality. Having Filia around was disconcerting. Having Amelia around was disconcerting. Having Sylphiel around and treating him like he was a desirable male human being was disconcerting. Having all three girls close at hand and having feelings for them about to burst out at any minute was disconcerting. "We just had a practice. It's okay." _But I'm not_, he thought.

Valgaav sympathized with his cousin's situation concerning Filia, although he didn't know that Zelgadiss had any lingering interest in Amelia. He did understand that being faced with an 'ex' in social situations was uncomfortable, and imagined that feeling like an alien at the same time had to be a miserable experience. What Zelgadiss needed, Valgaav figured, was a diversion. He sidled closer to Xel, and whispered a plan in his ear.

Xel smiled and nodded. They had put on a few 'acts' in clubs while in Atlas City, for the fun of it. Val had suggested one of them, and Xel agreed. "How about we give you a preview of what's to come?" Xel announced. "We'll do a few lines from our play, okay?"

Both teams clustered around as Xel and Valgaav fell into a comedy routine. Xel flicked a pretend cigar and waggled his eyebrows 'Groucho Marx'- style, and Valgaav played the straight man, or in this case, the lady nurse.

Xel started it off. "We need to get these people to a hospital!"

Valgaav held a hand over his heart, and in a shrill falsetto cried out in mock distress, "Oh no! What _is_ it, doctor?"

To which Xel replied, "It's a big building with a lot of doctors, but that's not particularly important now."

The group laughed spottily and groaned. Valgaav and Xel continued without stopping.

Xel asked, "Nurse, did you take the patient's temperature?"

Val replied, "No. Is it missing?"

Xel threw up his arms, "_Forget_ that one. Nurse, tell me how is that little boy doing-- the one who swallowed ten quarters."

Val shook his head, "No change yet, doctor."

Val cleared his throat to silence the giggle, and continued in his false female voice. "Doctor, there is an invisible man in your waiting room."

Xel replied, "Tell him I can't see him now. _Next!_"

Valgaav said, "Doctor, there's a man in the waiting room with a glass eye named Brown."

Xel rolled his eyes, and asked, "So, what does he call his other eye?"

"Oh gods this is awful," Lina moaned, although she was grinning all the while.

"I can't believe their delivering these idiotic jokes in a play. It's got to be the stupidest thing ever!" Filia decided.

Valgaav was not discouraged, and began feeding Xel the one-liners in a slightly different routine. He started by pounding himself on the head, and said in his normal voice, "Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"

Xel shook imaginary ashes off his cigar, and said, "Well, don't do that."

Val stopped. "Okay. So, doctor, what should I do if my temperature goes up a point or more?"

Xel threw up his arms again, "Sell!"

Valgaav grabbed Xel's arm, "_Doctor_, you must help me. I'm under so much stress, I keep losing my temper with people."

Xel tried releasing his cousin's death grip from his arm. "Okay, tell me about your problem."

Valgaav frowned, his expression turning dark as he growled, "I just _did_, _didn't I_, you stupid bastard!"

Filia caught herself chuckling at their silliness along with everyone else. "Aren't you in any of this?" she asked of poor Zelgadiss.

"Er...ah...not...yet." For a minute there he had forgotten his problems.

Xel put a hand to Val's forehead, and then took it a way. "Have you ever had this _before?_"

To which Valgaav replied, "Yes, doctor!"

"Well," Xel smiled ruefully, "you've got it again."

Valgaav asked, "Tell me, doctor, if I give up wine, women, and sex, will I live longer?"

Xel looked at him with a serious expression, then answered, "Not really. It will just _seem_ longer."

Before their audience could recover from that one, Valgaav asked Xel, "Well, doc, what does the X-ray of my head show?"

Xel replied, "Nothing."

"Really?"

"Really. Absolutely, nothing." Xel waggled his eyebrows and bit at his cigar.

"Oh, then, doctor, should I file my nails?"

"No, throw them away like everybody else."

Valgaav wrung his hands with worry. "Doctor, my tongue tingles when I touch it to a cracked walnut wrapped in used toaster oven aluminum foil, what's wrong with me?"

Xel raised an eyebrow comically, and stood back a ways, pausing before saying, "You have _far_ too much free time."

"Say, doc...How can I lose twelve pounds of ugly fat?"

Xel answered with a smirk, "Cut your head off."

"Doctor, I have a problem. I feel unhealthy and depressed."

Xel paused a moment to get where Valgaav was going with this, then satisfied that he knew how to respond, continued. "You should cut down on drinks."

"I don't touch a drop."

"You should cut down on smoking."

"I don't smoke."

"You should stop taking drugs."

"I don't do drugs."

"You should cut down on..." He thought of the word that was appropriate. "... Womanizing."

Valgaav sniffed indignantly, "Haven't touched a woman in my life."

Amelia giggled nervously.

Xel tossed his invisible cigar to the sky, and brushed off his hands. "In that case, get yourself a drink, learn to smoke, do some drugs, and find a hot girlfriend!"

Valgaav caught his father's eye. The man was pointing to his watch. "Look here, doc! You've already removed my spleen, tonsils, adenoids, and one of my kidneys. I only came to see if you could get me _out _of this place!"

Xel glanced at the clock, and saw that it was time to get back to the match. "I am, bit by bit." He turned to his audience and bowed. "And that's all for today, folks!"

"Yay!" Amelia and Sylphiel cheered. "That was terrible, but you guys made it funny."

Martina had been in the ladies' room and managed to miss all but the last few lines. "There was more? And I missed it? Ah, crap! That wasn't my fault; I had to go, you know? Can you guys do it again sometime?" She hung on poor Valgaav's arm, and whined all the way back to the chairs. Xel had skipped off at the first sign of Martina to remind Lina of their dinner date.

Unfortunately, Gourry was showing Lina one of his bowling balls, his new one, apparently, and fully monopolizing her attention.

"It really depends on your style but in my case I've found that I do better with a reactive-resin ball that is sanded with 600 grit wet paper on most lane conditions. If the lanes are bone dry then I'll use a polished plastic ball," he was telling her.

Fascinating stuff.

"Oh yeah? I didn't know that," Lina admitted.

Xel sighed, and thought to himself, "If that's the best that guy can do, I need not worry."

Sylphiel and Zelgadiss joined them. Xel smiled. It appeared that she was gripping Zelgadiss' arm. How cute! Xel listened in on what she had to say.

"There are some really good yoga stretching exercises which are very beneficial to bowlers. Also a squeeze-ball and hand-grip are good for fingers and wrist. A 10lb dumbbell is good for arm curls... ah... Some deep knee bends are good for legs. Push-ups are good for the shoulders..."

"Sounds like you have really liked the job at the club. You going to miss it?" Zelgadiss asked.

"It was hard to decide. Part-time work at the hospital wasn't much fun, but I learned a lot. When I was there when you were hurt, well, I decided that if a full time job in physical therapy ever opened up, I'd take it. And it did! It pays about the same but I get great benefits and I like helping people."

Zelgadiss asked, "So, when do you start full-time?"

"Monday. And I meant what I said. I know your accident was a horrible thing to go through for you, but it helped me decide what I really wanted to do most."

She was so earnest that it caused a flash of heat rise to his face. He had no idea what to say, either. But before he could muster up some clumsy reply, Amelia bounced over, eager to get Lina and Sylphiel together for a planning session. Zelgadiss was left standing with Gourry.

"How's it goin'?" Gourry asked him.

"Weird. I don't know how to explain it."

"Sure, life's like that a lot for me. We can talk while we finish the game."

"I think I'll pass. Sorry, I want to talk, but not here. Too many...ears. I'll catch you later."

After that the rest of the game flew by. Gourry took his turn. He was mostly 'On,' meaning _on target_ and _on line_. He was a player that consistently hit his target and scored well.

Xelloss had hit his fifth strike, and now his sixth in a row.

"Six pack. Six strikes in a row!" Gaav roared approvingly. He was pleased that he was getting his money's worth from his nephew, an expensive employee. "See how he opens up one of those Turbulence holes? That extra hole creates air movement and causes the pins to fly around and mix better."

"He's very impressive, Rubyeye," Phil frowned. "Where's he from? Don't know the name."

"My sister's boy. 'Course he's all grown up now, but he's still a kid to me. He hales from Wolfpack Island."

"Wolfpack Island!" Phil was shocked. The place was veiled in mystery. Once a colony for a cult of Satanists, it had been converted into a high-security prison for dangerous inmates the other jails couldn't handle and an insane asylum for the terminally hopeless. "That's no place for a boy to grow up!"

"No, but somebody has to run the place, provide the services, bury the dead," Gaav said in a low voice his eyes holding Phil's steadily.

"I suppose you're right..."

"Xelloss spent most of his childhood being shuffled between relatives when his father moved out. Xel lived withhis fatherbefore going to college. Been in Atlas City ever since, except when he worked summers on the island. He's mine, now." Gaav rubbed his chin. His eyes found Valgaav and followed his movements a moment. He was watching the youngest member of the opposition's team, Amelia. "Got my boy outta a few tough spots in Atlas City," he said absent-mindedly.

Coach Phil was looking in the same direction. "There's my girl. Give'em the Justice Fist of Power stroke!"

Amelia pulled out her favorite ball, and pretended she hadn't heard him. It was a little embarrassing to have her father shouting at her like that.

"Ah, not the 'pumpkin'!" Martina groaned. "Not _another_ soft-hitting ball. Put away the marshmallow. It is sooo ineffective!"

"You're right!" Amelia shouted. "No guts, no glory!" She asked and was given one of Filia's balls, and played more aggressively than she had ever played before, finishing the game with all strikes from that point on.

"That's my darling daughter!" the coach shouted. "She 'XXX'ed out!'"

Martina rolled her last ball, setting the ball short by either intentionally or accidentally releasing the ball behind the foul line. She was able to pick up the spare for the final shot of the game. As it turned out, Martina turned in a Dutch 200; a game of exactly 200 by alternately rolling spares and strikes.

While the final scores were being compared and discussed, Xel cozied up to Lina's side to remind her about going out to dinner.

"Oh, yeah, about that..." Lina began, unable to look him in the eye. She had not agreed to going out with** just** him.

"Hey, Lina!" Gourry loped up to join the crowd, as in 'two's company, three's a crowd.' "Ready to do somethin'?" as in 'something with me, your boyfriend.'

"Ah... well...about that..." Lina hedged some more. Now her promise was coming back to her. She hadn't meant that she owed him every free minute, especially after a game!

Xel's smile faltered. "Excuse me?" He was certain he had secured Lina for the evening, and now this other guy was honing in on his plans?

"Okay, so I told everyone else. You all ready to go guys?" Amelia said just bubbling over with excitement.

Valgaav added, "I guess we're all walking to the Italian restaurant around the corner."

"Uh, huh," Amelia nodded. "Miss Sylphiel and Miss Lina, and I planned it all out. I hope you can come, too, Mr. Xelloss."

"How nice. Thank you." He looked down at Lina, more than a trifle annoyed. "You have a short memory."

"Hey, nothing was firm, and a girl can change her mind, you know? Besides, no one runs my life for me, but me. Come on, guys! Let's go!"

End Graveyard Shift Chapter 12


	13. Enlightenment

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 13 **– Enlightenment-

Did you know that:

Cockroaches can live for nine days without their heads,

at which point they die of starvation?

It was Monday night at the morgue. The lab phone was ringing as the boys ran in from the changing room. Valgaav snapped off one glove and picked it up. "Rubyeye Funeral Home and Mortuary." He listened for some time, jotting a few notes on a pad nearby. "Okay, shoot. Yeah, that was quick. Hey, thanks for letting us know. Glad to help."

What was that all about?" Lina asked. She was last to leave the dressing area but was eagerly waiting for a call to duty.

"That was one of the detectives on the case of the body you pulled from the salt tank. He said they found a car in the parking lot with blood spots and fly pupae on the seat related to those we found on the body. If the DNA testing checks out, then they found the car used to transport the corpse."

"Great? Who does the car belong to?" she asked.

"It was his car, Dilgear's. The tank was full and there was a receipt stub from a gas station dated 9 days earlier than the discovery of the body– just as we thought."

"As we had deduced from the facts," Xel corrected. "So are they running prints from the car?"

"Yep. Waiting on that, too." Valgaav was about to check the 'to do' list when the phone rang again. "Your turn, Lina."

"Rubyeye Funeral Home and Mortuary." Lina listened to the message and jotted down a few instructions. "Gotcha. I'll be there in..." she checked the wall clock before saying, "twenty minutes. Yeah, thanks." She hopped off the stool and lifted the van keys off the hook. "I'm outta here. Got a live one, er...with bug life only, that is out on Route 90."

"I'll accompany you," Xel offered. Xel pushed his hands into the cover-all's pockets, a dramatic contrast to Zelgadiss, who would never have dreamed of doing so. It would ruin the line of his clothes, even if hey were just coveralls, and he was far too innately elegant to do that.

"Aren't I supposed to start going with Lina sometime?" Zelgadiss asked.

"Yeah, not a good idea, yet. She still has procedures to learn." Valgaav shuffled through the assignment sheets. "Zelgadiss and I can take care of what there is here. Go on, Xel, but make sure you stay well off the road while you are loading. Cars speed going down that road; at least, we've gotten several accident victims delivered from there in the past."

En route to pick up body, Lina started the conversation with, "So, doesn't a guy doing Zel's job usually have to go to college to learn stuff?"

"No, but there are a few specialty schools around, I understand. The morgue attendant, like Zelgadiss, is rarely formally trained. On-the-job training seems sufficient. What Valgaav does takes more training, and with a college education he can work cases for the government, do research, or any of several choices, which is why his father isn't pushing education for him; he wants Valgaav to stay working for him in charge of the cadaver room."

"That's not fair to Val," Lina said. She hated being told what to do and figured everyone else felt the same way. "Here's the turn off for Route 90 up ahead, then it's a few miles north of that. I don't see many women hanging about Gaav's place. Or is that just the night shift?"

"No that's the way it is all over. Most _are_ men-- a woman like Eris is a one-in-one-hundred occurrence. What's more, people in your or Zelgadiss' position tend to work at their job for decades. I think this is because management types don't know what goes on in the morgue, and would not care to mess around with its staffing come belt-tightening time, and the attendants themselves like being left alone by management, and enjoy a much greater degree of autonomy than most workers at their pay grade and level of education."

"A select bunch we are," Lina smiled.

"My own impression of the 'morgue attendant personality' is that they are somewhat secretive and cliquish, and one gets the idea that they have a lot more going on in their lives than they tend to let on. It is not uncommon for them to receive a variety of strange visitors in the morgue, some of whom have a less than savory appearance, as we saw with Eris." Xelloss smiled over at Lina, and added, "But there are exceptions."

"I see flashing lights up ahead. Yeah, that's the place." Lina pulled over behind a patrol car near an exit on Route 90, where an officer was waiting, but no wreck. It was the same investigator as before. "Hey!" Lina shouted as she hopped out of the van. "We seem to hang out at the darnedest places, eh?"

The man brightened when he recognized her. "Seems that way."

"So, where's the body for us to pick up?" Xel asked hoping to break their eye contact.

"It's off a rural road a ways. Two dirt bikers driving through a rural area just a few miles away came across a burned-out car. The spot is pretty remote. I thought meeting here at the exit would make it easier to locate. Just follow me." The officer replied to Xel, but his eyes never left Lina's.

She shrugged, and then said, "Okay."

"That officer is attracted to you, you are aware of that, aren't you?" Xel asked her when they were rolling again, this time following the patrol car into the dark.

"What? You're nuts. I've only seen him the two times over corpses, and he doesn't even know me."

"You think knowing you makes a difference?" Xel smiled. "I was crazy about you the moment I laid eyes on you."

Lina blushed like crazy. "Eh...that's enough. I'm trying to concentrate. This road's gravel and rutted and... Ugh! Full of potholes."

"Careful not to break an axle."

"Shut up."

Another patrol car was at the scene, head lights providing the only illumination besides a couple of portable battery-powered electric lamps.

Xel held up his flashlight, illuminating the gloomy interior of the wreck enough for Lina to observe the situation. Inside, the glimmer of light flickered across the back seat and over the charred body grotesquely slumped in death.

"We've already surveyed the crime scene and taken the photos, so it's ready for you to remove the corpse from the car," the investigator told Lina.

"Thanks. By the way, what's your name?" Lina asked. "I'm Lina Inverse, by the way."

"Detective Zolf. Nice to meet you."

Xel had the back of the van open and was picking through a few tools stashed at the side. "Lina?"

She dragged herself away from the handsome Zolf and got busy setting up the cot. Xel, it was clear, knew what had to be done to extract the body.

Lina watched and lent a hand when she could. "Done this kind of thing before, huh?"

She'd meant it as a weak joke, but his serious reply to the affirmative left her feeling uneasy. With as few words as possible, Xel and Lina scooted a plastic sheet underneath, wrapped it protectively so as not to scrape the crisp skin on the door, and jostled the corpse onto the cot. While Lina secured it with the straps, Xel examined the backseat for any further crime evidence. He found a few 'somethings' and slipped them into zip-lock style bags.

A rumble of distant thunder was the only sound in the remote area.

"We have a tow truck on the way to haul in the car. We want to go over it back in town," the other officer said to Xel.

"Good. I was looking for fried larvae beneath the body," Xel explained as he straightened up.

"What for?" the man asked. He was older, about to retire and more than ready to just go home and call it a night.

"Snacks!" Xel said lightly, and turned only after catching the man's face blanch. "Crispy critters. Here, catch!"

The officer, expecting a handful of 'treats', threw up his hands to ward them off, missing the bagged knife, which fell to the ground at his feet. At the same moment the sky lit up with a crack of lightning, followed by a rumbling of thunder.

"Make sure they test the blood on the backseat, burned as it is, and that knife for fingerprints." Xel left the man agog in time to break up another Zolf and Lina discourse.

Zolf took a radio call while Lina and Xel locked down the cot in the van and secured their tools.

"I'll lead you out," Zolf said, trotting over to his car. "I need to direct the tow truck."

"Hope you get out before the storm hits and washes the evidence off the car," Xel said.

"Let's not waste any time," Zolf nodded, and cranked on his engine.

"Xel, what did you say to that other guy?" Lina asked Xel afterwards on the way back to the funeral home.

He told her.

"Geez, that that was gross, Xel."

"Well, Detective Rodimus, that's his name by the way, was a professional, or should have been. He had to have known what I was doing. He should have been looking there as well but was too lazy to do his work."

"So, what were you looking for?"

"Oh, I was looking for larvae, fresh or fried, like I said, but that was because after I found the knife under the seat and the dark stain on the cloth seat where the body had been I figured that the man hadn't died in a car wreck." He didn't mention the most disturbing detail he had noticed, which was the dragon-claw design carved into the hilt of the dagger.

"I noticed that the car looked pretty good, despite being burned," Lina mused. "Now that I think of it, it didn't appear to be busted up at all."

"Yeah, that should have set off a few alarms in their heads, too. You are very perceptive."

"You bet I am! So, you were saying about the larvae?"

"That's right. I figured that if he had been lying out there in the open for long, a few might have started to grow."

"Maybe the fire happened right after he was murdered, before he could have attracted flies?"

"They'll go after cooked flesh or raw, but it might help us determine a time of death back at the shop." Xel turned toward Lina, watching her profile as she drove.

Lina could feel his eyes on her, and the desire emanating from him with each breath was palpable. "Zolf's pretty nice and all," she began. "But police guys aren't my type exactly."

Xel's attention was glued to her. "Oh? They don't make enough money for your tastes?"

"Well, that, too, but I was thinking that I may have a little outlawry about me that wouldn't let something like that work out."

Xel, pleased to hear that, smiled and patted her thigh. "And here I thought you were a nice girl."

"I am a nice girl. Nice enough!" She barked out a mad-sounding laugh and drove back to work, the rain holding off for a few more minutes. "Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaa!"

They returned to the laboratory to perform the autopsy on the blackened cadaver. Zelgadiss helped Lina move it onto the table. When he peeled back bits of the clothing, he let out a disgusted "Ugh!"

Live maggots were observed throughout the surface of the body, but when they removed the top of the skull, cooked maggots were found inside the brain. This was a significant discovery. It meant that the victim had been dead long enough for flies to leave larvae, for maggots to grow and eat away much of the decaying outer tissue and enter the braincase.

Xel teased out a few of the larvae, then with tweezers moved them to a Petri dish for closer examination. "By comparing the length and weight of the maggots inside the brain with my own charts of maggot development," he said, giving his own commentary as he did the work, "I conclude...yes... that the maggots had died between 14 and 16 days after the victim himself was killed. Put that together with the maggots outside the body-- that I collected along with the knife, which I determined to be approximately 2 days old-- and we have one odd case."

"Look closely at these," Valgaav pointed out to Zelgadiss.

"Marks like cuts."

"Yeah, Xel, take a look. You agree? These look like marks on the vertebrae," Valgaav called over to his cousin.

"Yes, from _all_ my extensive experience with stabbing victims," Xel said humorously. "He was stabbed hard. Okay, then based on this evidence, think we can reconstruct what happened. The man was murdered with one or more knife stabs, and left in the back seat. Some two weeks later the people, or person, who did it came back and set fire to the car, maybe in the hope of getting rid of the corpse, or creating the impression he had died in an automobile accident. The fire went out, and the body cooled enough for the flies to come back and lay more eggs on the burnt material."

"What did you come up with from the clothing?" Valgaav asked Lina.

She had cleaned the cot and stowed it, along with fresh supplies, back in the van. With time to kill and nothing else to do, she had agreed to shift through the burnt 'pockets' with a needle-pointed tool. "Gotcha, you little stinking piece of ID," she was grumbling. "I think it's a driver's license, but from somewhere else."

Xel bounded over. "No, not a driver's license, but something equally good. Our man was from Wolfpack Penitentiary and Asylum."

"An inmate? I didn't think anyone broke from that hell-hole."

"No one ever has, and neither did this guy. This was an employee." Xel frowned and moved to the computer. "I have a little work to do here, so if you'd all leave me alone a minute, I'd be most appreciative." As he said this, the phone began to shrill again.

"Got that!" Lina answered the ringing phone. She listened with a hand over her free ear, while Valgaav and Zelgadiss continued the autopsy. "I'll be right there. Hey, Val, since Xel's busy and it's just a private residence for another pick-up, I'll go alone, okay?"

Val didn't even look up. "Not okay. Take Zelgadiss, and change your scrubs."

Lina looked at her grubby coveralls, sighed, and left the room to change. Valgaav reviewed the rules with Zelgadiss as he also put on fresh clothes.

Fifteen minutes later, Lina located the apartment, parked, and set up the cot as Zelgadiss shut up the van and held open the door to the building. "Let me do all the talking," she insisted.

"Fine with me," he muttered through his concealing mask. He hoped the gloves, mask and scrub cap covered his unusual appearance sufficiently. He didn't want to draw unwelcome attention.

Inside, officers were present; one was bagging an empty pill bottle. Lina thought to ask for a single pill to test against whatever they might find in the deceased's stomach, and the officer complied. He labeled the evidence bag with the description on the jar before he handed it to her.

"Thanks...sir," she added for good measure.

She was glad to have Zel nearby. Adding his strength to hers was just enough to move the tall young man onto the cot. Zelgadiss remembered to place the block behind the head as Lina tightened the straps.

"Thanks," she said. "I hadn't needed to use the head block yet with my other...jobs."

Zelgadiss was unused to Lina's newly acquired professional demeanor and politeness. He replied, "You're welcome, Miss," with a sideways smile, and then ran to open the back of the van. The first rain drops were starting to fall. They were large and hissed as they dried instantly on the still-warm cement sidewalk. The day had been a scorcher, for those who had had to endure it.

"Val, can we do this one now or put it in the cooler?" Lina called out as she wheeled in the cot.

"Is it interesting?" Valgaav asked.

Lina tossed him the bagged pill. "They don't know the cause of death, yet, but he may have OD'd on this."

That was good enough for him. "Sure, you can put the cadaver on the center slab after it is cleaned. Zelgadiss, would you wheel this last guy into the keep? I tagged him. Here's the key. Lock him up, and then clean. Lina, you can start the ID process. I'll show you how we fill out the forms, tag, and file everything so nothing gets lost."

Xel, meanwhile, was still on the phone. He had been on the phone to his contact on Wolfpack Island, looking into the dead employee. She was more than willing to supply him with the latest passwords to the Asylum and penitentiary's databases. Of course, he hadn't told her exactly why. In fact, he had given her an entirely false excuse. He didn't trust anyone, and for good reasons; he didn't want his investigation getting back to his mother, being among the top two.

After looking up the information he needed, he returned to the phone to report to Detective Zolf what he had learned and what they suspected. He was going over the details leading up to their conclusions on the time and cause of death, when Zelgadiss and Lina rolled in with the next body.

From that point on, everyone worked in silence. They knew what had to be done, and didn't have time to waste.

There was one brief interruption when Valgaav called Xel over for a second opinion. They reached agreement and questioned Zelgadiss on his stomach findings.

"He must have swallowed the entire bottle. I counted 245 pills in his stomach; that is, if the bottle contained 250 originally."

"Really?" Xel was puzzled a moment. "Plus the three lodged in his air passage and the few fragments in his mouth. That would account for all of them."

"They couldn't have poisoned him, then. He hadn't even ingested them." Val could do the math as well.

"Let me look over that windpipe again," Xel said.

Lina had cleaned up, put away, and re-supplied the van and its contents. She helped Zelgadiss mop up and was happy to see Valgaav hang the clipboard back on its hook and announce, "That's it for tonight."

"There's probably still the stuff we had to do when we got here," Xel pointed out.

"Oh there is plenty left to do, but not time to do it."

"Vurumagen will have a fit in the morning."

"Tough. If Dad wants more done he'll have to re-consider the pick-up idea. We can't work the day shift jobs while bringing in more at night without more personnel." Valgaav ripped off his gloves and loped to the changing room.

The others were not going to complain. Going home 30 minutes early was fine with them.

As soon as Zelgadiss got home he went to his room and called Gourry. "Hey, I know it is early but I wanted to catch you before you went to work, and I know you run first."

"That's okay, Zel. I was just about to head out. What's up?"

"Can we meet somewhere? I need to talk."

"Sure. How 'bout lunch? I can take off anytime. Just need ta arrange with my co-workers for coverage."

"Yeah, and I need to sleep. 1:00 okay, or is that too late?"

"One's fine. Carmichael's burger joint?"

"Fine. Thanks."

"Okay, well...bye."

"Yeah, bye, Gourry."

That afternoon, they settled into a booth, ordered drinks, burgers and fries, and then sipped at the quickly delivered sodas. "So, what's on your mind, Zel?"

Zelgadiss shrugged. Despite the heat of the day, he wore concealing long sleeves, bicycle gloves, and his hood was pulled up over his head. He was completely uncomfortable.

Gourry wouldn't wait until his friend had finished his meal to get started. "You had something on your mind at the bowling game. This about the same thing?"

Zelgadiss nodded, and then set down his glass. He ran a finger along its outside, disrupting the condensation and sending rivulets to puddle on the table. "Yes." There was a long pause. "It's just..." There was another longer pause with more fiddling and more water collecting at the base of his glass.

Gourry moved in close so he could lower his voice to ask, "This about girls, Zel?"

Zelgadiss stared at Gourry's face as he weighed what the man had said. "I've been thinking."

Gourry leaned back again, flexing his muscular forearms. He had patience and time to wait out his dysfunctional friend. He was hoping that Zel would someday be able to adjust to his condition; he was hoping sometime _he_ would be able to look Zel in the eye and not wonder 'Who is this guy?' "Yeah? Thinking 'bout what?" he asked.

"I wonder what works best: dating or just hanging out to get to know someone. My cousins...they both do it differently, and...I dunno."

Gourry turned as the waitress set down their plates, baskets of hot fries, and condiments. "Whoa, that sure looks nice."

"Oh, thanks...sir. I hope you like it." Zelgadiss watched as she flirted with his friend. "Will there be anything else?" she asked.

"No, thanks." Gourry returned her smile, but not her 'I'm available' signals.

Zelgadiss concentrated on squeezing a blob of ketchup onto his plate for dipping his fries. He remembered when girls flirted with him wherever he went. Not any longer. Except Sylphiel, but Sylphiel was nice to everyone. He no longer thought that she had singled him out at the game.

Surprisingly, even the arrival of a plateful of food hadn't distracted Gourry from the subject at hand. "I don't know. What works for me is a combination. Hang out for awhile to let the girl get used to you, and see if there's any connection, then ask her out on a date. The date's best for getting close."

"Yeah. Valgaav, he generally hangs out with girls. They might go someplace but they meet others and are independent, often driving separate cars. It seems low-stress, which is good. But I don't think there's much opportunity to really hold a girl's attention with all the other distractions."

"And the competition," Gourry nodded. "Yeah, if you're just hanging out together, there's the chance the girl might go home with some other guy."

"There is that risk. I guess he's okay with it. He doesn't seem unhappy or happy either for that matter. Hard to tell with him. He's withdrawn at home. On the other hand, there's Xel. He prefers to date. He likes to be in charge and exclusive."

"That's an advantage, if you like the girl, but if you find you don't, it's harder to make a smooth getaway."

"Right. If you're hanging out, you can escape a possible boring night and no one feels the worse for it. Well, at least no one gets too disappointed."

"How's it working for him?" Gourry asked cautiously. As curious as he was to know what Xel was up to, he didn't want to find out that he was taking Lina out, even though Amelia didn't think he was and there didn't seem to any opportunities for Lina and Xel to go out.

Zelgadiss set down his burger. "Did you know Valgaav and Amelia might have something going on?"

"You think they might do more than just hang out for a change? Wouldn't surprise me. He likes her, she likes him."

"Yeah. So I gathered. Which means that hanging may have worked for him, but only up to a point. Now he may have to turn to dating, although he hasn't said that to me."

Gourry wondered if Zelgadiss was avoiding discussion Xel's personal habits for some reason. Some bad reason. "What about...Xelloss?"

"Xel. He hasn't dated anyone that I know of. He seems to hang out with the rest of us, but hasn't made any real headway. He used to date though. He talks about it all the time." Zelgadiss was careful not to refer to Lina in particular, suspecting Gourry's relationship could be in peril but not wanting to assume that it was.

He was right to do that. Gourry's face lost all its look of worry and consternation, which it had been adding up like layers of sun screen as the conversation had proceeded. "That so? Well, maybe it's not so much the technique, but the guy."

"Could be," Zelgadiss conceded. "He's been suffering from lack of progress, which is pretty funny to watch. He completely failed to get Sylphiel to fall for him, for instance."

Inwardly, Gourry smiled. His friend had finally gotten around to what was really on his mind. "You know Sylphiel talks about you whenever she can. That's a sign, you know? Whenever a girl likes a guy, she finds a way to talk about him all the time. Have you thought about asking her out?"

"Lately, all the time," was Zel's answer.

"_Hello, Breast Self-Exam Hotline! For assistance, please press one now. Now press the other one."_

"Xelloss," Lina growled into the phone. "Pick up your phone before I..."

"Lina, what a pleasant surprise! What can I do for you this afternoo...?"

"Knock it off," Lina growled, but it turned to chuckles soon after. "By the way, thanks for changing the phone message."

"You like it?"

"No, but it's shorter. Say, can you meet me someplace close, right away?"

"Sure." He paused a millisecond to consider 'the where'. "Shall I just swing by and pick you up on the way to ...wherever?"

"No. Just meet me someplace walking distance. The park. You know where that is?"

"I've passed it." He never spent a moment outside if he could help it.

"Good, then I'll see you there in 15 minutes. Bye."

"Okay. Bye, now." Xelloss hung up the phone, slipped into a pair of sandals, probably Zelgadiss' since they certainly weren't his, and grabbed his keys. He wouldn't make it to the park in 15 minutes unless he drove. He couldn't imagine what was on Lina's mind, and he shook his head, amused with himself that he hadn't even thought to ask. Meeting her, pleasing her, doing her bidding without question– it troubled him slightly, causing him to wonder what was going on inside his head.

Xel hadn't been waiting long before he spied a free-spirited girl waltzing up the street toward him, and then, to his consternation, broke out in an inconvenient sweat the moment he recognized Lina's bouncing red curls. He wanted to spend what was left of the afternoon with her; he would draw it out as long as he could.

"Good, you didn't keep me waiting," she began.

"Can we sit in the shade?" he asked as he indicated a picnic bench under the tall oaks.

"You don't get much sun, do you?" Lina stated the obvious– his skin was ivory.

"No. I'm more of a night person, actually."

"So am I. Ah...so... Amelia told me something interesting this morning that I thought I'd pass by you."

"Okay." His eyes sparkled with interest. Since she chose to sit on the table with her feet resting on the bench, he did the same, after brushing off the detritus that hadn't bothered Lina a bit. They smiled at one another sitting comfortably side-by-side, hips touching.

"Apparently, her father found out where you're from. He told her it was on Wolfpack Island. That _place_, Xelloss, where you said that _body_ came from-- that _horrible_ place?"

His eyes lost their brilliance as he lowered his lids. His long black lashes in sharp contrast with his pale cheeks made his beauty appear more fragile. "You want to know if it's true?"

She nodded.

If he said the wrong thing now, he feared he could lose her, but if he wasn't honest, then he knew for a fact that Lina would have nothing to do with him. She had made it clear that she could tolerate a little mystery, but not down-right lying. Cautiously, he met her eyes in a brief glance to gauge her frame of mind so far. Her look was eager and interested, not repulsed, so he continued. "I was born there. My mother lives there and runs the funeral business on the island, the only one, and owns several more on the mainland. My father separated and moved nearer to Atlas City. I lived with him awhile when I was going to college there. Wolfpack was a strange place to grow up. That's why I often lived with relatives as a very young child. It's also very beautiful. Not all of it is a jail, you know." He opened his eyes and looked directly into hers unguarded, imploring Lina to be open-minded.

She saw into his heart, at that instant. She was flattered to think that this older man, this very_ intriguing_ older man, was seeking her approval, and was pleased that he was conceding control of the next step to her. "I don't know, but...I'd sure like to see it. Maybe you could take me there sometime? I mean, it's not the end of the world, but almost."

Xelloss was taken aback by her ready acceptance of his background and by her request. "Really?" His relief was evident in his voice. "You'd like to see it? That would be... that would be fun. I'd like to take you. There are caves and beaches to explore, but little sun. It's very foggy and stormy out there, even in summer."

Lina smiled. He was like a little kid jabbering excitedly about his homeland. She figured he had never had the opportunity before. She posed questions, and he answered for a few more minutes. No jokes or subterfuge. For awhile. He didn't remain serious for long, not when she gave him the perfect opportunity to joke around.

"So, isn't a pathologist a kind of doctor? You're not an MD, right? What's the difference?" Lina asked him.

"I can tell you the difference between an internist, a surgeon and a pathologist." He grinned and at that moment Lina knew that she just set herself up for one of Xel's jokes. "An internist knows everything, but actually does nothing; a surgeon knows nothing, but, as it turns out, does everything; a pathologist knows everything and does everything, but, sadly, too late."

Lina burst out into laughter, delighting Xelloss to no end. Whether it was love or not, Xel realized that making Lina happy and hearing her laugh aloud again was his goal from that moment on.

"I have a story related to that, if you are interested?" he smiled, eyes glittering.

"Sure, knock yourself out, Xel."

"I call it the Doc Hunters." He paused long enough to get the story straight in his mind, and hold Lina's attention. "Okay, so a group of doctors went out duck hunting. They hadn't been waiting very long before a bird flew toward their blind. You know what a 'blind' is, don't you? A camouflaged spot from which they observe their quarry."

"Yes, Xel, I know that. I hunt, ya know. Go on," she urged.

"Well, the general practitioner got ready to shoot, but then turned to the others and said, 'It's what I've _heard_ a duck _should _look like, but I'm not sure. You specialists have more experience with this -- what do you think?'

"But by _that_ time the bird had flown over and was out of range. Soon another bird flew toward the doctors. The internist, an internal medicine specialist, just to clarify for the purpose of this story, prepared to shoot, but then hesitated, thinking 'It's _probably _a duck, but I should do some tests to rule out whether it's a goose or pigeon or seagull.'

"By which time _that_ bird, too, had flown over and was gone. A bit later, another bird approached. Showing no hesitation, the surgeon stood up and blast several rounds with his shotgun. The bird plummeted into the marsh some distance from the hunting party. The surgeon turned to the pathologist, asking, 'What are you waiting for? Get out there and find out what the f#&k that was.'"

Lina laughed along with him. "That was awful. Where do you come up with your material?"

"Mostly the bathroom walls at med school. It was the only place I ever read for enjoyment. The rest of the time it was all course material."

"Bathroom walls, huh? Speaking of 'coarse' material..." Lina nudged him with an elbow, while he groaned at her pun. "Hey, as fun as this is, I gotta hit the street."

He hopped off the table, and then handed her a rock by his foot. "Can I walk you back? It's only a stone's throw away."

"Ha, ha!" Lina smiled, but shook her head. "Nah, I gotta do some things. Later!"

"Okay," he said quietly, then added quickly before she escaped, "I promise to take you to Wolfpack before the summer is over." He wanted her to always have him, and doing something with him, on her mind.

"I'll hold ya to it!" she said with a cute wink, and dashed off without another word, knowing they would see each other at work in an hour. Aside from the minor contact of their legs as they sat, Xelloss never touched her, and yet he had stirred something deep inside her for the first time. She didn't want to analyze her feelings right now, or ever maybe, so she stuffed it to the back of her mind and cemented it in place with her meal plans.

Neither one of them realized it yet, but their relationship had made a small adjustment, altering the way they would relate to one another in the future.

A day later, Valgaav was observing Zelgadiss prepare a cadaver for autopsy when the phone rang.

"Rubyeye Mortuary and Funeral Home," Lina answered. "Yes, it is. Oh, hi, Detective Zolf."

Xel's back stiffened and he looked up from his table.

Lina continued talking. "Is that so? He's sitting right here. I'll put him on for you." She tossed the phone to Xel with a smile. "He was excited by your info."

Xel returned the smile and took the phone. He listened and spoke in a low voice before he passed it back to Lina to hang up. "Thank you. Well, I was able to trace the burned stab victim's ID card to his work records."

"You wouldn't mind telling us how you managed that, would you?" Val asked with a frown.

"I used the computer, but that's not the point," Xel evaded. "The victim failed to show up for work one morning, and he was listed but not reported missing by his employer, which isn't any real surprise. Then 18 days later, the two dirt bikers came across his burned-out car, and then we were called. I passed the dead man's name to the investigation team with the results of our investigative work the other day. They were very grateful."

"So, who was the guy?" Val asked irritated by Xel's pleasure in drawing out the tale for his own amusement.

"Joe. I told them that if they look hard enough they will find evidence to link Joe to Dilgear's death, say fingerprints on Dilgear's car. I faxed Detective Zolf a copy of Joe's prints on record at the penitentiary. They keep records of many things there, dental records too."

Zelgadiss stopped what he was doing and asked, "Why would you link this Joe guy to Dilgear?"

"Something seemed fishy with him."

"That wasn't an answer." Zelgadiss gave a snort and returned to work.

"I have a nose for trouble?"

"He's not going to tell us," Val growled. "And if it has anything to do with that Wolfpack place, you don't really want to know. You'll be safer not knowing."

"Now I'm curious," Lina cut in.

"Sorry, but...it's a secret," Xel said, then turned back to the phone to begin a new conversation.

"Yeah, well not all of it," Lina stalked up to Xel and stuck her finger in his face. "Zolf was most excited that you pointed out the importance of some mark on the knife. Tell me about that, and don't think you can wriggle out of it."

Valgaav became interested. "The knife was special, wasn't it? As in a ceremonial one."

Xel hung up the phone. "Yes, Val, it was a Cepheid Clan dagger embossed with the sign of the dragon claw. Now you know all what the police know. Let it rest."

Xel knew the details of Val's background. He knew Val's mother had been part of the Cephied Clan, while Gaav certainly was not. By mentioning the dagger, this particular one, he knew it would incense his cousin to be deprived of the whole story behind it. Besides, he had a way of getting under Val's skin like no other person could. They had a kind of rivalry and a friendship that was hard to define. Val idolized his older cousin for his independence, success, and charm, and despised him for those same qualities-- and Xel knew it. They hadn't out-grown their childhood roles, just elaborated on them. Xel was a sporting fellow, and when he saw a chance to rile his younger cousin, he would. He was not disappointed, either.

Val was on the smaller man in an instant, grasping Xel by the collar and practically snarling in his face. "You know more. You know why Dilgear was killed, don't you? DON'T YOU!"

"Xel, if you know something, tell us!" Lina agreed.

"It may be a clue to what happened to me!" Zel implored.

Xel did not want to be evasive, but he had no intention of telling them more that night. Valgaav's threats did not bother him, and his other two friends were safer ignorant. He was saved by the telephone. "Excuse me, guys..."

Val released his hold and allowed Xel to pickup the call. "Hello, Rubyeye Mortuary and Funeral Home. May I help you?" His eyes caught Lina's. "Yes, where did you say the deceased is? Yes, thank you. Goodnight." Xel hung up and side-stepped Val. "Sorry, but it's time to roll. Zelgadiss, you are up to your elbows in embalming, so I guess that means it's just you and me, babe." He winked at Lina, exuding charm.

"Go, but we will discuss this later," Valgaav assured him.

But the later wouldn't come that night. He and Zelgadiss had a long night's worth of work to do, while Xel and Lina delivered three additional bodies-- two from private residences and one from a retirement home. None of the new incoming corpses were 'intriguing' enough to displace the ones already slated to be embalmed that night, so they were 'processed', tagged, and stored in the cadaver keep for the morning shift. By the end of the shift, the four friends were beat. All they wanted to do was go home, bathe, and sleep. Xelloss-bashing would have to wait.

It was the late afternoon when Xelloss received a call from an investigating official. He hung up and called out to Zelgadiss. "Guess what?"

Both Xel and Zelgadiss were in the kitchen.

"I couldn't possibly." He was wholly occupied stacking cubes of sugar into fascinating towers, and had been ignoring all of Xel's efforts to get him out of the house to shop for food before they had to go to work again that night.

Valgaav was out climbing walls. He had invited Sylphiel along to 'show her the ropes', he had said, since she was into 'that kind of thing'– whatever that had meant. Zelgadiss had been welcome to go with them, but had declined this time. "Maybe next time," he had said.

"We are being hauled into court."

"WHAT!"

Xel smiled. That had gotten Zelgadiss to react. It was a very satisfactory sensation, stirring things up a bit. "That body we brought in and autopsied? It's part of an ongoing investigation and we are being called in to testify. We are not always in the lab. Sometimes we, and forensic pathologists in particular, are called to testify in court or at inquests as expert witnesses."

"Great. Who is included in that 'we'? Not me, surely. I don't know anything of value."

"Of course you do, Zelgadiss. But that's not the point. I need you to back me up, to make certain I don't leave anything out on the stand."

Zelgadiss knocked over his sugar wall, "Fine. Another shot day." He picked up his kitten, Chimera, and smoothed its fur, comforting them both.

"It's part of work, so that means we will have the night off, and we'll just blow off Friday, too, while we're at it, giving us a long weekend. Valgaav mentioned taking you to Atlas City."

"So what? Don't we have that play to do, not to mention another bowling tournament?"

"Not until Sunday late. Better busy than bored," Xel said with a smile. He had dismissed the Saturday play practice entirely. "We'll pull the notes from that examination, and get prepared tonight."

The phone rang again. "Hello?" Xel asked. "Hold on. I'll see if he can make a break from his building project. It's for you," he whispered to Zelgadiss, "And it's a _girl_."

Zelgadiss felt his ear tips burn. "Give that to me," he hissed. "Hello? Oh, yeah. Building? No, that was my roommate being funny, or at least trying to. I thought you were rock climbing with Valgaav."

"I was, or am, but he and I were talking and something he said and something I just learned about you don't fit quite right and so he said I should call you," Sylphiel told him. "We're on our way to your place. I've got my car so I'll show you what I found when I drop Valgaav off, okay? You'll still be there?"

"Yeah." Zel was confused about whatever obtuse thing she was trying to get across, but he understood that last part at least. It meant time for the cover-up to go back into play. "We all go into work together. Ah... the play...and..."

Zelgadiss was momentarily flummoxed as Xel started dancing with the cats in the front room. Ever since Xel had seen a coffee table book called _Dancing with Cats_, he had been determined to get one of the brood interested in reproducing his stretches and leaps. His antics amused the kittens. A couple tried to catch his hair strands as he rolled on the carpet. To the unfamiliar, Xel appeared half-witted; to Zelgadiss he seemed seriously demented.

"...a-and..." Zelgadiss stuttered as he tried to get his work story back on track.

"It's okay, Zelgadiss," she said softly. "Valgaav told me what you guys really do. We all know now. I'm impressed, though, with how you guys are working at night and are really in a play, too! We're here at your house! See you in a second."

Valgaav opened the door with a tired sigh, and then led the way into the room, Sylphiel at his heels. "Zelgadiss!"

He stepped over Xel, and Sylphiel circled around, greeting Xel with a friendly, "Hi! Playing with your little kitties? How cute!"

"Heeeeello," Xel said. He lay flat on his back, letting the cats crawl over him and tickle his bare chest with their whiskers.

"What is it?" Zelgadiss asked.

Sylphiel handed him a paper. "Look at this."

On it she had written some names and dates, which he scanned immediately. "This is my birth date," Zelgadiss said. "That's my father's name. I don't know this name but it's close to my mother's. What's this about?"

"When I was at work today, I was looking up some records and filing updates, including yours. I...I was curious about you and read a few things."

She looked at Zelgadiss who wore a scowl on his face and had folded his arms across his chest defensively. "I maybe should have asked your permission first, but... That was information taken off your birth certificate. D.S. Dolphin was listed as your mother's name and Wolfpack Island was your birth place." She could tell this was news to him as his expression changes and arms dropped to his sides. "It wasn't what you'd put on the form they had you fill out at the hospital."

Xel inhaled loudly.

Zelgadiss turned to Xel, Valgaav's eyes tracking him. "My mother's maiden name was not Dolphin. What the hell kind of a name is that anyway? Xel, what do you think? Is this D.S. Dolphin possibly the same person as your aunt? Dolphinia...like my mother's name but different."

Xel just stared at him.

"Why would this be on a copy of my birth certificate?"

Xel said nothing, but Sylphiel did. "It looked like a real birth certificate, Zelly. It had all kinds of official-looking seals and stamps and all the right signatures and stuff."

Valgaav put in, "Your parents aren't around, right?"

"No," Zelgadiss answered. "I can e-mail and ask them."

"Or ask Rezo. Your grandfather should know."

"He won't tell Zelgadiss anything, Val. Of that I can be certain. I've been trying to discover the missing parts of the family tree linking Zelgadiss here to us, but Rezo was not forthcoming."

"Then...let's call your Aunt Dolphinia. Didn't you say she ran a golf course?" Zelgadiss asked with a creeping note of desperation in his voice.

"That was Aunty Dolphinia's money-losing, combination golf course/graveyard, the Golfatorium. Ah..." Xel began to explain, and then left off, hesitating to reveal more information than was necessary. He had his own business interests and secrets to conceal and protect.

"She's dead, Zelgadiss," Val told him. "Has been for some time."

"Dead?" Zelgadiss paled. He was trying to get his mind around having a different birth place and possibly a different birth mother than he had known, and now he had to contend with her death as well.

"I have some suspicions that some dark secret is being kept from us all." Xel scooted the kittens aside, and then stood up. "I believe it's time for me to pay Wolfpack Island a visit."

"I want to go with you," Zelgadiss said.

"I'll think about it," Xel said. "It may be more valuable for you to stay here and check on other information for me. Ahhh, it's time to go to work and I need to change into a shirt, so if you all will excuse me..."

"I'm sorry, Zelly. I didn't mean to mess things up like this."

"It's okay, Sylphiel," Zelgadiss said and meant it. "I'm glad you did." He was beyond traumatized, and was without words to say more. When she rushed over to give him a reassuring hug, he returned it thankfully.

The burnt body in the car story was taken from Bones: a Forensic Detective's Casebook, by Dr. Douglas Ubelaker and Henry Scammell.

End Graveyard Shift Chapter 13.


	14. In Your Court

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 14 -In Your Court-**

Did you know that:

In Erwin, Tennessee an elephant was once hanged for murder?

* * *

It was unusual getting up on a_ weekday morning_, dressing, and heading off for an appointment, but they did, all four of them. Valgaav and Xel sat up front, while Lina shared the back seat of the car with Zelgadiss, just as they had for the last few weeks, except that the sun was out and the day warming beneath it. Lina had insisted on tagging along to the courthouse, declaring that she had driven the van and that made her 'involved.' Xel didn't mind, of course, and Valgaav said it was okay since Lina couldn't work at the morgue alone, and the rest of them had the time off for the court appearance. 

They rode to the courthouse in silence. Xel wore a tranquil smile on his face, which was not what Zelgadiss expected since Xel was the one called on to testify. Zelgadiss would have been a nervous wreck. He_ was_ a nervous wreck, clenching and relaxing his fists repeatedly. "You don't seem nervous at all," Zelgadiss noted.

"That's because I'm not. I've done this before, as I've said. I know how it works. All I have to do is think of it as a game where I am the winner if I make my own rules instead of playing by the lawyer's." Xel had reviewed the file of data the evening before to refresh his and his co-workers' memories, so he knew he was prepared. All the others had to do was sit, listen, and be ready to step in just in case he needed verification of his recollections.

"It's a case with insurance company interests at stake, Xel, and those of the kid's family. Where there's money involved it's serious, and you should treat it that way." Valgaav had used this argument already, and his cousin had laughed him off that time, too. He was uneasy, and found it helped to take it out on Xel for being in such a good humor.

As it turned out, Xel was right; it was merely a stage for another of his comedy routines. He had a magical touch to get other people to play into his hand, and this was just another instance.

Xel took the witness stand in the 'expert witness' capacity. The lawyer representing the insurance company asked Xel, "Before you signed the death certificate, had you taken the pulse?"

Xel shook his head slightly, his enigmatic smile plastered on his face. "No."

The lawyer asked in mock surprise, "Did you listen to the heart?"

"No."

The lawyer, satisfied with his line of questioning, continued to press, "Did you check for breathing?

"No."

Pleased that he had found a way to discredit the witness, the lawyer wiped off his smug expression and put on his best you-are-seriously-incompetent face. "So, when you signed the death certificate you weren't sure he was dead, were you?"

But Xel was not to be outmaneuvered by this weasel. "Well, let me put it this way: The man's brain was sitting in a jar on my desk. But I guess it's possible he could be out there practicing law somewhere."

When the laughter died down at the bequest of the judge. Xel motioned that he wanted to speak again. "Actually, my assistants, Lina Inverse and Zelgadiss Greywords, ascertained that the victim was dead before moving him to the morgue. Then Valgaav Rubyeye and I did the cause of death determination."

The lawyer sighed, defeated. "And what were your conclusions?"

"This man, the deceased, attempted suicide with pills. He thought he would swallow them, but he was so excited that he poured the last of them down 'the wrong throat' and choked to death." Xel leaned forward, smiled, and added, "It is up to you lawyers to argue whether this makes it a suicide or an accident."

The judge hid a smile behind a hand. "You may step down, Mr. Metallium. You are excused and may go home now, thank you. I call for a three hour adjournment. I would like to see the prosecutor and the lawyer for the defense to see me in closed session."

"Cool, so we got the rest of today off now to start our long weekend," Lina said.

"That's right," Xel said with a knowing smile for Lina. He backed out of the parking space humming a jaunty tune, and continued in this good mood as he drove them all out of the courthouse parking lot. "I'm going to stop at the ATM over there for some cash."

This was fine with everyone since they could use some as well. For all his interest in getting at his money, Xel didn't seem in any particular rush. In fact, he was last of the friends to make his transaction. Moreover, as other customers got in line, Xel passed up his own turn and let them jump in front of him.

"Thanks!" said one happy woman with a baby in a back pack.

"Come on, Xel, let's go!" Lina urged him along.

"What's up?" Zelgadiss grumbled.

"Oh, no..." Valgaav moaned. "I think it's another Xelloss entertainment moment."

"Just improving my odds, that's all," Xel said with merriment in his voice.

His explanation only served to make Lina more curious. She was about to say more, but Xel finally chose to take his turn. He stepped up to the ATM machine, punched in his code, and waited with a smile on his face. The metal cash slot opened with a clink, revealing a pile of twenties. Xel grabbed the wad of twenties in a fist and hopped up and down screaming, "I won! I won! Third time this week!"

This stunt left everyone around him stunned. He broke into hysterics as he stumbled back to his car.

"What did I tell you?" Valgaav asked disdainfully. He had seen this one before--possibly three times. Zelgadiss and Lina chuckled, though, at his weird antics.

Valgaav had invited Zelgadiss to _do_ Atlas City with him, so they were dropped off at the house to change clothes and transfer to Val's SUV.

"Later, dude," Val waved to Xel. "Don't let the wolves eat you!"

"Some goes for you, Val, and, Zelgadiss watch his back and remember: you can just say no!" Xel said jokingly, but, as Zel could tell, with a touch of serious intent as well.

Xel started up his car again, noting with satisfaction that Lina had moved to the front seat. As he backed out of the driveway, he said, "I think you need to pinch me."

"You do?" Lina grinned. "Eh, it's no fun when you ask."

"How else will I believe that you are really going to Wolfpack with me?"

"Oh, like a dream come true?"

"Something like that, yes."

"And the pinch would make that complete?"

"Well, not exactly... OUCH! Lina that _hurt!_"

"Heh, heh. Yeah, it_ is_ more fun when it's unexpected."

Xel shook his head, and continued to drive Lina home. Their plan was to make a quick stop in order to pick up an overnight bag from her house. She and Xel were going to Wolfpack Island, but no one else knew that. Amelia believed, because that was what she had been told, that Lina was going to her Aunt Lucille's home in Zephillia. Valgaav and Zelgadiss understood that Xel was visiting his mother alone, having no reason not to accept Xel's explanation that an emergency had arisen requiring his immediate presence. Lina accompanying Xel alone was as unlikely an event as any they could imagine.

Xelloss smiled inwardly as he recalled his earlier phone conversation with Lina. "When I asked if you'd like to join me on my visit to Wolfpack Island, I truly hadn't anticipated that you would say yes, Lina."

"Well, I had mentioned being interested in seeing the place before. Besides, it's just for the one night, right? You plan to be back for a Saturday night play practice and Sunday's bowling tournament. I mean, geez, Xel, don't make so big a deal out of this, okay? I didn't have anything big planned, and I figured I'd be nuts to miss an opportunity like this."

But to Xel it had become a very big deal. He realized how much he appreciated Lina's spontaneity. Valgaav would have taken a week to mull it over. Zelgadiss would have had a thousand concerns and questions for which Xel would have to have the right answers before thinking over his answer, and then both of his cousins would probably decline anyway. Yes, Lina might have been guilty of making the occasional rash decision, but this one had been so unqualified, so unexpected that he was left speechless momentarily. Lina grew immeasurably more attractive to him. In fact, she scared him. They hadn't even been alone on a date, yet! He was afraid that he'd not be able to take advantage of her now, because she was so trusting.

They pulled up to the Seyruun residence where both Amelia and Lina lived. "I'll be just a min. Stay here and I'll be right back!" Lina shouted as she ran from the car to her private back entrance.

"Fine." He was happy to wait and avoid running into any family. It wasn't that he wished to avoid any confrontations; he loved them. He was simply in a good mood and didn't want to have to explain a thing to anyone, especially Phil, Nahga, or Luna.

His peaceful moment, basking in the sun while leaned up against his car, was disturbed by the loud roar of a powerful engine. Gourry was behind the wheel as he tore up the driveway and spun, crossing the path and blocking Xel's exit. "Ah, the knight in shining armor here to rescue the fair maiden," Xel mused. He made no effort to move. He watched as Gourry climbed out of his vehicle and advanced resolutely his way, anger in his every movement, the body language screaming 'this is a man to be reckoned with!' Xel couldn't wait.

"You," which Gourry said in a way that sounded more like an animal growl. "I shoulda known you'd try something like this."

"Like what?" Xel asked innocently. Gods, he was loving the other man's pain! And, should Gourry actually harm him, the remorse he'd inflict upon himself afterwards! The thought brought Xel pleasure, and he smiled.

"I ain't stupid. This work trip isn't that, is it? You just wanna get yer pasty hands on Lina far from people who can help her!"

Xel straightened and glanced at his hands. He was fair-skinned, but not unhealthy. Gourry made one correct statement, though; Xel _had_ just wanted to get Lina to himself when he asked her along. "Good afternoon, Gourry. Just catching a few rays. I'm afraid I don't tan very well, however."

Two more strides and Gourry was on him, burying his hands in Xel's collar and lifting him off his feet. "Shut your smartass mouth up and listen to what I got to say!"

Gourry raised a fist to his face and slammed it into Xel's jaw. Xel reacted without thinking, driving a knee upwards into Gourry's gut and jabbing sideways with an elbow. A trickle of blood dripped from his swelling lip as Xel ripped his shirt free and pushed the larger man back.

Gourry lurched forward and wrenched Xel's arms backward and put him in a headlock. "I'm just getting started here."

Xel croaked out, "Hit me again and you are dead. My family's lawyers will have you so locked up in the court system that you'll lose your job, your life, Lina's respect..."

Amelia heard the disturbance outside, and ran out the front door only seconds behind Lina.

Lina scooted up to Gourry and pounded him on the back. "Hey! What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at work? I called to tell you I'd be out of town tonight and part of tomorrow just so you wouldn't be wondering what I was up to." She frowned. "Why are holding onto Xelloss? He's not about to disappear, ya know?"

Gourry released his grip and Xel dropped to the round. "He's not to be trusted, Lina. I can't believe you're goin' away with him. If you gotta go for work, then I'm goin' along, too. Someone's gotta protect you."

"First of all, I don't need 'protecting'. I can take care of myself. I'm also a pretty good judge of character, and if I think it's okay, then that ought to be good enough for you, not that I need to justify myself to anyone. I ran away from home to make my own choices, and I don't need you mother-henning me!"

"But he's not whatcha think, Lina. I'm a man, so I should know. He's not got yer best interests at heart. Not like me. Besides, you said the weekends were ours. For us, just you and me."

"You should listen to Mr. Gourry!" Amelia cried out breathlessly from her run. "Mr. Valgaav asked me to join him and Mr. Zelgadiss on their trip to Atlas City, but I said no."

"Well, sure. Phil would never have let you go," Lina said.

"But that's because unmarried girls should not go unaccompanied on overnights with men, Miss Lina!" Amelia shook her finger at her older friend. "It can ruin a reputation and lead to all kinds of trouble– especially with an older, experienced man like Mr. Xelloss. No offense, Mr. Xelloss! Oh, you're bleeding! Here's a hankie."

"Thank you, Amelia." Xelloss held the dainty cloth to his lip and pressed gently to staunch the flow.

"Oh, Amelia, I'm sure he's not planning to seduce me or anything. Geez, we'll be staying with his mother, right, Xel? Separate rooms?"

Xelloss, who was the ultimate sophisticate in subtlety, the art of deceiving without lies, and of keeping his own counsel in everything–looked baffled suddenly. "I've no idea!" When he saw Lina blush in response, he smiled with the charm he had used to devastate women, and occasionally men as well, all his life. "But you can trust me to see to your every comfort during your stay."

Gourry stared hard at the older, though, smaller man. If he had had a sword, he would have driven it through Xel's heart, regardless of the threat of lawyers. The man was a demon, the devil himself. Why couldn't Lina see that?

"Goodbye, Amelia, Gourry. The guys have got play practice Saturday late, so we oughtta be back before then. Gourry, see ya Sunday night." Lina received a curt nod in reply. "Now, get me out of here," she said to Xel through clenched teeth.

"As you wish." Gourry's truck was still obstructing the driveway, so Xelloss revved the engine of his little sports car a couple times before pealing off the pavement, tires squealing, leaping the curve, and driving over the edge of the lawn on his way out.

Gourry's only solace was knowing that Xelloss would have to pack his face with ice and down a pile of pain relievers. It was enough to bring a ghost of a smile to his lips.

Amelia smiled, and patted Gourry's arm comfortingly. "Miss Lina will be okay. She won't let Mr. Xel get past her defenses. She's a very strong individual. If she said she'd be true, then she will. You can trust her to keep her word. Righteousness flows through her veins!"

"I know," he said, although he didn't think that last part really applied to Lina. He hated to argue, though. He dropped his eyes a moment, then fixed them on a faraway object as he said more to himself than to Amelia, "She swore it to me, and if I doubt her then I doubt everything I live for and treasure, everything that makes life precious to me."

Xel winced as Lina tested the darkening bruise on his jaw. "Serves you right, picking fights with the workout master himself. And I thought you were the wiser, old man!"

Xel didn't reply. He was seething inside. That man had made him look foolish, and marred his face. "I have to stop at the drug store. Come in or stay." Lina chose to remain in the car while Xel sought out a dozen emergency ice packs and wrote himself out a prescription for an assortment of pain medications offering him varying levels of relief. When he returned to the car, he asked, "Would you hold this to my jaw while I drive?"

"That's stupid. I'll drive. _You _tend to your jaw."

Lina grabbed the keys out of his hand and bounded out of the car. She raced to the driver's side and slid into the comfortable leather seat. As she adjusted it and the mirror, she must have moaned in excitement, because Xel looked at her quizzically. "You didn't plan all that just to get your hands on my car, did you?"

"Ha!" she laughed. "No, that was your and Gourry's stupid little act. I had nothing to do with it, but it would have been so cool if I had, eh? Heh, heh, heh... Now, why're there two brakes on this car?"

"Two...? That one's the clutch. You've never driven a stick shift? Oh, my..." Xel groaned and plastered his forehead with another ice pack.

"Hey, it ain't rocket science. I can do this. I can do anything. Just get me started! Oh, and where are we going?"

"Airport. Okay, step on the clutch, gently floor it. Start the engine. See the stick? Put it into first gear to get us to move forwards, reverse to back up. I'll talk you through the rest when we get out of the parking lot."

After the first couple of miles, Lina had the hang of it, and Xel was able to close his eyes and relax.

"I don't feel like killing myself any more."

Lina did not know what to say to a statement like that. She didn't know Xelloss well enough to know if he was referring to his pain pills kicking in or something deeper. "Oh? You never seemed to be the depressed sort, to me. So, you gonna tell me why not?"

Her question flummoxed him. He was expecting something along the lines of, 'Oh that's wonderful. You are far too important to me to throw your life away like that!' "You mean, you think I _ought_ to?" he asked.

"Well, it's really not up to me to say one way or the other what you should do with your life. You know more about what's up that I do, but if personal opinions are what you're looking for, then I'd have to say, that's just great. Killing yourself is rarely a well-reasoned decision. So, do you often feel the need to end your life?"

"Yes, yes I do," he sighed melodramatically and limped on, "I suffer from a melancholy of the soul, or at least I did. Now, however, I feel absolutely...euphoric!"

"You ever been checked for manic depression? Ah, just kidding! It's probably the meds you took. So, are we celebrating your good mood?" Lina asked.

"If you'd like. I bow to your will."

"Nice. Celebrating can be pricey."

"That's okay. I'm not totally without funds. I'm no starving college student. I am a man of independent means and stand to benefit from a large inheritance. Does that meet with your approval?"

It did, but she wasn't going to admit that just yet. "Let's see how the evening pans out, okay?"

"Holding your judgment in reserve, eh? That's wise. It puts the ball back into my court. I must continue to please you to leave you with a good impression. Are we nearly there yet?"

"No. We just passed the Chinese restaurant on 9th."

"Never been there. Is it especially good?"

"Yeah, and the portions are huge," she grinned.

"I like your attitude, Lina. You really hold nothing back when you're going for what you want.

"If it interests me, that's right," she agreed and concentrated on the road ahead. "But only if it interests me," she added.

When they reached the airport, Xel directed Lina to the private airstrip. She parked where he told her to, inside a low building. Xelloss removed their bags from the back of the car, when a man in coveralls, an emblem marked WP over his chest, approached them. "Plane's ready. Will you be piloting tonight, or would you like a crew?"

"Who's available to fly us?"

"Miss Sherra, tonight, sir."

"She's good. Okay, ask her to take over. Miss Inverse and I will board now, if that's all right?"

"Certainly, sir. I'll see to your clearance with the tower. Have a good flight."

Lina looked over at Xelloss as they walked up to 6-person private jet. "You have a pilot's license? You never told me that."

"There's a lot you don't know about me," he said with a forced smile. "All good, of course. I grew up on an island. I learned to sail and fly, anything to get off of it as soon and as quickly as I could. Here we go now..."

* * *

"Wanna drive?" 

Zelgadiss smiled. He was the only one of the three guys he knew best, four, counting Gourry, who didn't have his own car, so he never had the opportunity to drive. "Sure, thanks."

Valgaav tossed him his keys, and climbed into the passenger seat. "You can ask anytime, you know."

Zelgadiss just nodded. He found it embarrassing that he hadn't the nerve to ask to borrow his car. Valgaav directed him to the right highway, and then plugged in a CD. It wasn't long before both guys were singing along to the eclectic mix of tunes, and shortening the boring drive. The sky was clear, the road dry, and all was well with the world.

Atlas City was spread out and between a high elevation valley in the mountains. Hiking, skiing, climbing, and fishing were popular sports which drew thousands of visitors into the numerous inns and lodges throughout the year. Atlas City University added its own community of students and staff. Combined, the populations of the city of Seyruun and Atlas City made up half of the head-count of the entire city-state of Seyruun.

Seyruun housed the courthouse and administrative buildings for the area and was further distinguished by being home to both the great White Shrine and the most varied assortment of religious sites in all the land. Atlas City, on the other hand, had the most bars, gambling establishments, and lax laws controlling them.

Seyruun was often referred to as the White Shrine Capital of the land, whereas Atlas City was known as Vice Central. Other than that, the two cities were a lot alike; the two cities each had a large university, several community colleges, and multiple galleries and theaters for the fine arts, and busy communities. What Valgaav was taking Zelgadiss to experience was Vice Central.

After awhile, Valgaav started the conversation. He likened his role as big brother to the younger Zelgadiss, being the younger bother or cousin to all the other guys in his life. He preferred to avoid most social contacts and stay within his own head, but there were topics they needed to discuss. "So, were you and Amelia ever, you know?"

"No! Nothing like that, really." Zelgadiss said in a nervous rush of words.

Zelgadiss, prior to the accident, had been Valgaav's opposite, absorbed with the practical world and limiting his innermost reflections when possible. Having his physical appearance changed so dramatically and having been so close to death had changed him. He had had time to think over how he felt about Amelia, over and over, and he had decided that there wasn't enough 'past' to matter. He had just needed to think someone might want to date him, still. If Valgaav and Amelia were interested in each other, then he could accept it. He would not divulge how close to being hurt he had been. "She had a crush on me for the longest time, but then again, so did lots of girls. I was rather popular, at one time."

"I bet you were. Rich _and_ good looking."

Zelgadiss blushed. He wasn't used to hearing that from another guy. "I liked dressing well and taking care of myself. I liked girls to pay attention to me, but I was too shy to ask any out. I really wasn't into dating girls for the longest time, and then one day, I thought Lina was the hottest babe in the woods. The next day, Gourry confessed he was in love with her, and well, I wasn't. I couldn't claim her first or anything so I wished him luck, and invited them both out for lunch."

"Why did you do that?"

"Gourry was unsure of himself..."

"Yeah, that Lina can be intimidating," Valgaav interrupted. "Sorry, go on."

"That's true, and Lina could put him off forever, so I gave them a head start. As soon as the food arrived, I played sick, and left them on their own. It worked. They started going out after that. I think he was the one behind getting Filia to approach me. I never thought I was even in her league She was very popular and stunning, don't you think so?"

"Yeah, she's quite a looker, but shallow," Valgaav lowered his voice to add, "for dropping you like she did." He could have said more, like how pointedly mean she was to Xel, but he didn't. He could tell that Zelgadiss' heart was still clinging to hope.

"I don't blame her. I would have done the same, had it been her. I mean, for me if a girl was pretty, I'd give her a second thought, but if she wasn't..." His voice faded. With a new idea, Zelgadiss continued. "Shallow. Yep, that was me. Now, I have character. That's what all this is, right? A character-building disfigurement. A true test of a friend is who will like me in spite of my weird looks."

"More of a test is who can stand that attitude of yours, dude." Valgaav punched Zel lightly to show his not-too-serious intent. "Be prepared to be fawned over just for your looks, because you will be. It will make your life even more confusing."

Zelgadiss returned his half smile. "That will be okay. That kind of problem I can use for a change." His smile faded as he grew more thoughtful. "You don't know what it's been like, looking into the mirror in the morning and not recognizing the face looking back at me. And when I'm out, there are times, moments when I forget what I do look like, and see a girl and wonder if she might like me, and then I see her turn and go like into a trance looking at me. It happened at the bowling alley. When we were getting a drink, she came up to the bar, then just stared when she caught sight of me, and then I think she ran."

Valgaav shook his head and changed CDs. "You're right. I don't know what it's like, but I _do_ have to look at your ugly mug all the time." Valgaav laughed a deep rumbling laugh as Zelgadiss' face reflected shock, anger, then settled on 'perturbed.'

"Funny guy." Zelgadiss grumbled. Actually, he wasn't the least bit mad. He was relieved and grateful for the conversation. It helped get his raw feelings out in the open. He decided Valgaav could become he closest confidant at this rate.

Valgaav listened to the next song, and then tried again to talk about what was on his mind. "At first, I thought maybe you and Amelia had been going out, so I wasn't sure..."

"We never went out, like I said. Hey, she likes you, that's great. She's pretty naive, I have to warn you. More the 'tickle and kiss' stage, actually."

"Yeah," Valgaav dipped his chin to hide his smile. "I figured that out. I'm not sure what to do about her. I asked her along with us."

"HO!" Zelgadiss laughed. "You didn't think she'd say yes, did you?"

"No. I hoped, maybe, but no. She's nothing like Nahga...or Gracie, as she calls her."

"Is that a good thing? Being different?"

"For me, yeah. I'd rather have Amelia tell me what to do than her sister. Get me into a lot less trouble."

"Don't you like to be the one in charge? You sure are at work."

"Nah, that's different. It's easier letting the girl do what she wants and do all the planning, as long as I get something back, eventually."

"That makes sense. Filia pretty much told me what was what, down to what I should wear. And... It was nice, kinda. It was like she cared."

"Yeah. Nahga, well, she would tell me what and how to do it, if you get my meaning. 'Course, I don't expect that from Amelia. In fact, I don't know really what to expect from her, so I thought I'd find out from you."

Zelgadiss drew a deep breath. This was hard, but he could do it. Zelgadiss had been somewhat unsophisticated in the past, but experience and time might have altered that. He now was certain that he had never been in love with Amelia, which fact in itself improved his ability to judge. Without romantic ardor to blunt his intellect, he could better help his friend. Here was a chance for him to prove his friendship.

"Get in with her father, Phil, the bowling coach, remember? He's into public relations for the Seyruun administration. His older brother, Randy, is the chief administrator for the City-State, you know? So, Phil's got connections with the media, films, TV, press, you name it. What's important is that he dotes on Amelia, and she admires him immensely. Get on Phil's good side, and you're in good shape. Oh, and don't get caught messing around. He would frown on that."

"I'll bet," Valgaav growled, and fast-forwarded the CD past a dull song. "I can do that. I'm not like Xel. He's insatiable." Valgaav chuckled softly. "'Cept lately. He hasn't been out with a girl yet this summer. Poor dude's probably gonna look up some past babe."

"On Wolfpack Island?"

"No, I doubt that's where he's really going. He hates it there and wouldn't lend his mother a hand if she was on her deathbed, or maybe **only** then– he'd probably be thrilled to do her autopsy."

"He's odd, all right. You really think he'd do his mother's autopsy? That's kinda sick."

"Tear her limb from limb, and relish the opportunity. She made his life miserable as a kid, not that the place itself isn't bad enough. He used water-filled bladders and stomachs for balls, he told me."

Zelgadiss winced.

"Learned the trade on inmates, dead ones, I _assume_, before he could write. Him and death are close friends."

"Must have lost his respect for women there," Zelgadiss said. "Although, Lina keeps him in his place."

"You mind him going for her?" Valgaav asked, remembering that Zel had just told him that he had once liked Lina.

"I'm a friend of Gourry's, and I think Xel's driving a wedge between them. It's their business, though. I don't want to pick sides."

"They both can't have her, that's for sure. I'm with you, though; rooting for that Gourry dude. He seems like a basically good guy, whereas I know Xel's pretty callous, I might say even brutal. Not that it matters much, because I think Lina will have to do the picking, then as friends, we'll pick up the pieces."

"I'm hoping she'll hang tough, and Xel will look for easier prey."

"Yeah," Valgaav agreed. That would be good. He didn't want to have to deal with Luna's fury over a match up like that, either.

* * *

It was a gorgeous day to fly. Lina had never been in a plane before, and the small jet was an ideal beginning. Xelloss had told her the Raytheon Hawker 400XP was small and fast, up to 511 MPH, and good for short hops. "Look, Xel!" Lina shouted excitedly and pointed out the window. "A pod of whales! See!" 

His face was throbbing and his head ached. He was holding off giving himself a thorough examination until he had swallowed a Demerol or Percodan. No, he decided, it was maybe going to be a Darvocet and when he was in bed. The acetometaphine was barely shaving the sharp spots off the pain in his jaw, which wasn't broken, he was pretty sure, and the ice pack was keeping his face from blowing up. If he smiled, the lip would crack back open and the bleeding renew, so he kept his mouth shut, mostly.

"Hnn," he grunted.

"There's something. Is that the island? Sure. That's where we're going, huh?"

"Uh huh."

The plane was banking as it circled over Wolfpack. When they boarded, Xel had asked Sherra to fly low and give Lina the scenic tour. Xel pointed out the window, and ventured a sentence. "Compound's on that side."

Lina nodded. Gray featureless structures were dotted across a barren landscape, which was completely cut off from the forested portion of the island by a high wall. The land ended in ragged cliffs with no less than a two hundred foot drop off into the ocean. It was lifeless and still and very, very bleak. It looked as if a great wind had swept the land clean, cleared it of every rock and plant and animal, and then a solemn people had come and erected the great stone walls and buildings. Lina shuddered to imagine living out your life sentence in a desolate place like that.

"What a godsforsaken place. Geez...No wonder no one escapes," she said.

"No one leaves _at all_."

His hollow voice gave Lina a creepy feeling. Xel was looking far out to sea, so she couldn't tell what he was really thinking, and that was probably just as well. Some thoughts were best not shared. As the plane swept low over the forest side of the island, he told her more. "Wild wolves in there."

"There are? You ever see them?"

"I've heard them. At night they'd howl. My mother would warn me that if I didn't obey her, she'd throw me to the wolves."

"Oh, Xel, that's just an old saying"

"Unfortunately, not to me," he said flatly. "I knew it was possible because a few of the inmates had, well, been punished."

He seemed so emotionally impoverished it obviously frightened her, but he hadn't meant to. It was the pain descending on his mind, dampening his spirits. To change the sensitive subject, he looked for more sights to interest Lina. "The only approachable beaches are on the side opposite the compound."

"Oh, I wanna go see those. Look at the white sand, and it's so bright! Must be a rare sunny day, huh? That's our good luck working." She was letting him off the hook with the wolf problem because she knew she could get more out of him later when he wanted something from her. Now, he was clamped shut, hardly talking. The 'I have my secrets' shield was up, she thought, and he was obviously uncomfortable. Whatever he was hiding from her would be more fun to work out of him later, when he felt better and the playing field was leveled. "So, this is the side you lived on? Tell me you lived in a house and not in the asylum."

"No!" He smiled, opened his wound, and the blood gushed. "Damn it all." Lina pressed a fresh compress of gauze to his lip, and he held it in place firmly. "Thanks. Ah, no, I didn't live in the asylum, and, before you ask, I didn't live in the jail either. There you can see my old place now."

What Lina saw was a castle on a hill cleared of timber at the forests edge. "That place! That's not a home!"

"You don't need to tell _m_e that," he started to laugh, but caught himself this time.

After landing, Sherra sent their bags ahead to the 'house' with an errand boy, then she left to locate the keys to Xel's island car, a Ferrari two-seater.

"You do go in for hot cars, don't you?" Lina asked. She ran her hand over the mirror-like, black hood appreciatively.

"This one was my father's. He left it behind, and mother hated the look of it, so it came to me. I leave it here, because it's too high maintenance to keep, really. There's an employee here, been here for ages, who babies it for me." He winced and closed his eyes, leaning back against the wall.

"You sure you're up to this?" she asked him. _You look awful_, she thought, but didn't say aloud.

That was the time she'd asked about to his condition following the fight with Gourry. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. On the one hand, he was used to girls fawning over him, and, in a case like this one where he was hurt, begging to 'make it all better.' Lina certainly was not guilty of that. On the other hand, she wasn't staring at him or chiding him for his part in the fight either. As he thought about it, Lina had never flinched in Zelgadiss' presence, either. For that he was thankful. He hated over-critical women, or men, for that matter.

"No fog and no clouds? We may never get another day like this all summer. I'll be okay, but thanks for asking." Xel turned at the sound of Sherra's approach. "Thanks for running these down for me," he said as he took the keys.

Lina nabbed them out of his hand, and let herself into the car. Xel allowed her to play a minute, while he gave Sherra further instructions for preparing the plane for their return flight home.

* * *

"If I can find a place to park, can we eat here on campus, or do you have other plans?" 

"No, this is fine," Valgaav said. "Nice place to walk around while it's light enough to see. Try up a block and to the right. Art students can't afford cars."

Whether art students had cars or not, Zelgadiss was able to locate a spot to stow Val's SUV. "It must be two degrees cooler, more maybe, than down in Seyruun. And so clean!" Zel took a deep breath of air and let it out, smiling. "This place is great. Fresh mountain air... I'll bet the water come from springs."

Valgaav look on with a bemused smile on his face. He hadn't seen Zelgadiss this animated in a long time, _ever_, when he thought about it. "If you think this place is something, wait until you get a taste of the nightlife."

"What a beautiful day, isn't it?" Zelgadiss asked not expecting an answer from Valgaav.

* * *

Xelloss checked his face in the visor mirror again. 

"Is it broken?" Lina asked as she poked a finger at his jaw.

"No, it's not dislocated either. Bone bruise. The joint's sore and swollen, too, so I can't open my mouth far." He flipped up the visor and turned to Lina. "It'll be black and blue shortly. With luck, the discoloration will stick around long enough for the performance and I'll not require makeup. Ah, that was a joke. I can't smile or my lip starts to bleed again."

"Yeah, yeah, you're a real wreck. Those pain killers helping any?" She shook the paper bag from the druggist.

"Fine."

She didn't believe him. Lina opened the bag, fumbled around side with the bottles, and checked the labels. "Whoa, you don't fool around do you, doctor? This is heavy duty stuff ya got yourself. Narcotics."

"Mostly codeine derivatives, which is why I not taking them until I go to sleep. I will need my concentration unimpaired. Look over there! Nesting herons in the trees. We can park and stroll the stream down to the shoreline and look for shells, if you like."

"Yes! Oh, Xelloss. What a beautiful day!"

* * *

After a brief walking tour of the campus, Zelgadiss and Valgaav headed to an eatery Valgaav knew. They settled into a booth at a popular Italian restaurant. "You know, Valgaav, just being here on campus is exciting. It has me thinking I might follow through with my plans and come here next fall." 

"Hey, that's good, Zelgadiss. Good news."

"You liked it here, didn't you?"

"Oh, yeah. Great place. I remember coming home that first summer after living all year sharing a place with Xel. Nahga came over, and that was when dad was still living there some of the time, right? Well, imagine how much fun it was trying to sleep with my girlfriend with my dad snoring on the other side of the wall."

"Yeah, that would kinda kill the mood." Zelgadiss shrugged, and then sipped at his drink a bit. "You...you're coming back to school here in fall, isn't that what you said? So, we could maybe room together, you and me; that is, if you'd want to and if I decided to come..."

Valgaav looked up, his golden eyes meeting Zelgadiss' hooded blues. "That would be cool. Dad wants me to stay at the morgue. He just doesn't see the point of college for me. 'We got the family business. A job for life, my boy. Not to pass up,' that's what he says." Valgaav ripped off a hunk of bread, and swabbed up the last of his spaghetti sauce.

"He doesn't know you want to go your own way?"

"No, and I hate to disappoint him. He's been...everything for me. My brothers, too, but dad especially. He's been great. But..." Valgaav checked his watch, and then stood. "Hey, you wanna meet them, my brothers, that is? We can change clothes there."

"There?"

"Their place. An apartment close by. Get me the keys; I'll drive."

* * *

Xelloss looked at his face in the mirror, examining it closely. He chuckled humorlessly. "The guy's good. One hit, just right, nothing broken, nothing serious, but enough to ruin my weekend. He could have easily killed me, if he'd wanted to, but he wasn't stupid enough to do anything extreme. Got to hand it to you, Gourry, you are presenting me a challenge. Too bad for you, though. The girl is mine." 

"Xel? Are you about ready? I'm really ready for dinner."

"Coming, dear!" He stepped to her side, and took her arm, wrapping it over his. "I was hoping to avoid this, but mother noticed our arrival and she wants us to join her."

"That's not so surprising, Xel. It is her house, er, castle...place."

"I suppose not, but I was hoping just the same. Don't be afraid."

"Afraid? I'm not afraid of anything. You know, I don't intimidate easily either."

"I know. I admire that about you."

He said nothing more after that admission, but held the ice pack to his face and strode resolutely, leading her through the cold stone hallways. They make their way from the lower level entranceway, where they had come in from outside, past the occasional faded tapestry or dark landscape painting, which acted to break up the monotonous gray blocks between dimly lit wall sconces, to the second story dining room.

He hesitated at the door.

"So? Go in," she urged.

"I just want to say," his eyes roved over her face appreciatively, and then lowered to encompass her whole person. "How terrific you look in that dress, Lina." He held out a hand and touched her hair, his eyes open and luminous. "You are the most beautiful young woman I have ever set eyes on."

"Oh..." she looked askance, and blushed under his hot gaze. "You mean that you have set your sights on, dontcha? Heh, heh... Well, sure I am. You said to bring a dress and so I did." She could feel his smile, even if he was hiding it. "Thanks. Listen, I'm not good at accepting compliments, okay? So, just go in already."

He opened the door and stepped aside, "You first, Lina-dear."

* * *

Zelgadiss stepped inside the apartment. The smell of unwashed socks and aging stacks of take-out food containers nearly knocked him senseless. The place was a wreck. Every visible square inch bore some form of neglect. Two young men were lolling on the couch. "Hey," one of them said. "Ooh, who's the pretty toy you have brought tonight, V-bo?" 

Zelgadiss' eyes widened in disbelief.

* * *

Lina strode confidently into the dining room. She took in the rich rococo decor in a glance. Florid wallpaper with gold leaf embellishments ringed the room; a huge crystal chandelier with asymmetrical scroll work hung over the centrally located and equally ornamented table, which was surrounded by no fewer than twenty elaborately ornate carved chairs. The light made Lina think of a floating castle in the sky for some reason. It was a fleeting whimsical thought, because immediately afterwards, her eyes were riveted to the single occupant gracing the table. 

"Oh, who's the pretty creature you have brought tonight, Xelloss, my dear boy?"

Lina's eyes widened in disbelief.

**End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 14.**


	15. Castle and Checkmate

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 15 -**Castle and Checkmate-

Did you know that:

Alice Chase, who wrote 'Nutrition for Health', died of malnutrition?

* * *

"This is a cousin of ours, Zelgadiss," Valgaav said by way of introduction. "We work together. Ah, these are my brothers, Gravos and Jillas."

The shorter man with the straight red hair, moustache, and beady eyes bounced off the couch. He had been the one to say hi before, and now he let words loose in rapid succession. "Hey, just call me 'The Fox'. Get it? 'Cause I'm so _foxy_."

Other than the red coloring and the overall presence of hair, he looked nothing like their father, Gaav. Zelgadiss could not help noticing the black patch he wore over his right eye, but he refrained from staring at it.

"I thought your friends called you 'The Bomber' cause you 'bombed out' so many times with the babes," Valgaav said with a grin. He had scored a point on his older brother, who chose to ignore him in favor of Zelgadiss, for the moment.

"Whoa, are you blue for real, dude?"

"Um, yeah," Zelgadiss replied. He nearly added, "Wanna make something of it?" but didn't. Jillas seemed to ask the question in a good-natured way. Besides, he must have been only 5'6", making Zelgadiss feel superior by his additional three inches.

"Yo, get off yer butt and get over here and meet the new cousin. Ya gotta take a look at this dude's hair. Zel...ah..." Jillas turned his head from Gravos to Zelgadiss, and asked, "Ah, I can call ya Zel, right?"

"Well, there is this other guy..." Zelgadiss began, but then Gravos approached him, cutting off the light in the room. Here was the image of Gaav coming at him, but without the hair. Gravos wore his hair shaved completely off, but from the impressive pair of eyebrows curtaining off his eyes, Zelgadiss guessed his hair would be dark.

"Hey, dude, your hair's like...I don't know...wire or something. Shit, if my hair'd do that, I'd grow it out. How'd ya get it to do that?" Gravos pawed at Zelgadiss' hair, strands sliding between his giant fingers like streams of silver.

Zelgadiss blinked at a glacial pace, too stunned to speak or move away. Only the incessant barking of a dog a few doors down broke the silence. Zelgadiss was without words, so Valgaav helped him out. "Leave off, Grav-ass. He was in a chemical accident at work, and it just about killed him. I think Zelgadiss, in case you missed the intro earlier, is pretty cool looking."

"Oh, I think Zel's awesome," Jillas put in, pushing himself to the forefront. He was obviously the spokesman of the pair. Zelgadiss was about to say that he preferred to be called 'Zelgadiss' these days, but he was over-ridden by the booming voices and distracted by the noisy dog, which was still barking with gusto.

"Yer name's...Xel?" Gravos was catching on now. Zelgadiss knew now where all the brain-genes had settled in Valgaav's family, but then he remembered that Valgaav had been adopted, and so was not a blood relative.

"You know, now that I hear you say it, 'Zel' sounds too much like 'Xel', doesn't it? Ha! Ha!" Jillas laughed at his own cleverness.

"It sounds exactly the same," Valgaav pointed out. "Just say his name. Zel-GA-diss. You can do it even if it's got multiple syllables. Listen, why we stopped by was this: we're hitting the clubs and need to change clothes. Our cousin Zelgadiss here, doesn't have anything to wear that'll fit in with the other clientele, so I figured something of yours, Jillas, would fit him. My stuff's still stored here, or have you guys sold it all?"

"Sold our dear baby brother's gear? Never, never, never! How could you think that? Naw, it's back in the storage closet on the floor behind the pile of books."

"So that's where it was," Gravos scratched at his bald pate. "I was wondering..."

"Anything's pretty much lost to you if it's near books," Valgaav muttered beneath his breath. "Gravos is here on a football scholarship," Valgaav explained as he and Jillas walked Zelgadiss to bedroom. From over his shoulder he yelled back to Gravos, who was bringing up the rear, "This your senior year, isn't it?"

"Yeah, then I'm goin' into the pros. I almost quit last year, but Bomber here made me stick around one more year."

"Well, I didn't want to lose my roommate. They don't come any better than you," Jillas said. "Okay, let me see what we can put you in."

Zelgadiss began to feel the heat rising to his face. "I'm okay, really. You don't have to..."

"Oh, sure, you're okay, but we're gonna make you better than that. Blow everyone's mind out. Your pants will do fine-- I mean, black jeans go with everything, just pull them down lower."

Jillas continued to chatter as he dug through his shirts, discarding some to a different pile in a random sorting process. Zelgadiss wasn't at all sure he wanted to wear anything of this man's; it might contain toxic chemicals. The stuff certainly didn't look clean.

"How can you stand that dog barking? Is he like that all the time?" Zelgadiss asked.

"What dog?" Jillas looked up. He must have spied exactly what he had been looking for, because he hopped over to his closet and removed a shirt and vest from a hanger. "This is where you were at! Had them cleaned. Try them on, and then I'll see what we can do with your face. I have some eyeliner here in the drawer someplace. You guys going right now? If you wait a minute, Gravity-boy and me will go with ya."

"My face...?" Zelgadiss passed a fearful glance to Valgaav, hoping he'd put a stop to those plans.

Valgaav did. "We can't wait. I know it'll take you guys hours to get ready. We'll run into you at the Cavern after midnight." However, the protection stopped there. He caught Zelgadiss' eye, then explained, "Jillas means he wants to highlight your features, not cover them up." Valgaav raised his voice to carry to the bathroom where Jillas was rummaging for the makeup in a drawer. "Not much, you hear me, Jillas? Light on the liner and sparkles. Got that?" Valgaav repeated.

"Sparkles? I don't like that showy stuff. I think I'm eye-catching enough." Zelgadiss was going to put his foot down somehow, on _something_. The shirt was tight-fitting and translucent gold, while the vest was leather. He re-hung the vest, choosing not to look like a bigger idiot than possible and then discovered that the shirt was missing the top few buttons.

Valgaav agreed. "Yeah, you won't need that vest. Don't need those buttons either; you'll have the shirt off in no time anyway. It gets hot in the clubs and the Cavern is...well, you'll see. Let Jillas do your eyes, dude. He's got a truly steady hand, while I go change into my par-tay clothes."

Zelgadiss gave him a squinty-eyed, dirty look for reneging on his defense while Valgaav barked out a laugh. Reaching for his overly warm hoodie in order to cover up, he was interrupted when Jillas called for his immediate attendance in the bathroom. "Plant your ass on the can and lean your head back a ways."

Zelgadiss sat gingerly on the edge and waited as Jillas rolled up a wad of towels, jammed them all between the wall and his head, then pushed on his chin. "Lean back."

His head was resting comfortably in obeisance as he silently prayed that the towels had at least been washed recently. To his surprise, Jillas' weight landed on his lap.

"Sit still and close your eyes again," Jillas commanded. "I'll do the left one first, but ya gotta hold real still or else it smears and I got a mess to clean up and haveta start all over."

Zelgadiss closed his eyes more out of shame than in the spirit of cooperation. He wondered what he had gotten himself into? The day had been going so well, and now he had a guy on his lap, a cousin, with a hand on his mostly bare chest, applying eyeliner.

"I was thinking of some lip gloss. You sure don't need the blusher, do you?" Jillas asked.

Zelgadiss knew his cheeks were the color of burgundy wine by now, and didn't answer.

"You know, you were mentioning that dog barking. I don't even hear that dog any more. Damned thing barks at EVERYTHING. A real annoyance when the owner's gone, which is most of the time. Now it's just background noise. We got the windows shut and air on, so you must have good hearing with those pointy ears you've got. Mine are kinda pointy, too."

Zelgadiss couldn't nod. He was forced to answer. "Yeah, I do."

Gravos wandered in to watch. "Know what bugs me?"

No. Zelgadiss did not, and cared even less. He wondered what was taking Valgaav so long– probably doing _his_ eyes as well. Zelgadiss had never heard of guys wearing makeup before, at least not _real_ guys. He wondered what his grandfather would say if he saw him right now. He would have a fit. A ghost of a smile hovered over his lips as he imagined Rezo walking in on them and having conniptions. "Oh, what the hell, do sparkles and whatever."

"Good boy," Jillas patted Zelgadiss' cheek, and moved slightly to paint his other eye. "No, Gravity, what bugs you?"

"When I listen to the radio and the talk-dude doesn't tell you who sang that song, that sucks. That's why I don't like radio no more."

Zelgadiss agreed. "Yeah, and ever notice how a station comes in brilliantly when you're standing near the radio, but buzzes, drifts, and spits every time you move away?"

"Ye...ah?" Gravos' face lit up as he processed the complicated thought and recognized the situation as related to himself. "Yeah!"

"Or how about when you rub on hand cream, and then can't turn the bathroom doorknob to get out?" Jillas asked. "I just hate that."

Zelgadiss had never used hand cream, but he had gotten into cooking oil. "Or opening a bottle with greasy hands."

Gravos laughed as he said, "Oh yeah! Beer and greasy chips!"

"Sure," he agreed, although Zelgadiss was thinking of pickles and olive oil.

"You ever bite down on a piece of foil candy wrapper and have it make electrical contact with your filling? Now that sucks painful." Jillas reached over the counter for a bottle of glossy, sparkly gel.

"Well I work graveyard, which means I sleep mornings, and I can tell you that it's no fun if you set the alarm on your clock for 7AM instead of 7PM." For Gravos' benefit, Zelgadiss elucidated. "The alarm goes off just after I've fallen asleep and then it's hard to relax after that."

"V-bo works graveyard."

"Yeah, Gravity-brain, he knows that. They work together. Val told us that already. Weren't you payin' attention?" Jillas ran a finger over Zelgadiss' lower lip, leaving it wet and glossy-looking. "Done. Now you're ready for Atlas City, Zelgadiss my man."

Valgaav entered the bathroom just as Zelgadiss got to his feet. "You look exotic, dude."

"Thanks, you look..." Zelgadiss just gawked a moment, then sputtered out, "Val...I...ah...never saw you that way before."

Valgaav had tied his long hair off his face with a black silky headband, which showed off his dramatically kohl-lined eyes. His exposed chest glowed with bronzing cream beneath heavy bands of a black leather harness studded with sharp metal points and rivets. What caught Zelgadiss off guard most, though, was the above-knee length black leather kilt. He thought of gladiators whirling axes in the lion pit.

"What you have _here_ is the height of Atlas City clubbing _gea_r," Jillas said, laying a heavy emphasis on the rhyme pattern.

"Oh."

Valgaav was pleased to have shaken up his younger cousin, and said to them all, "He's just happy we didn't put _him_ in a getup like this. Come on, Zelgadiss. Let's do the City."

On their way to the door, Jillas said to Zelgadiss, "I thought you were a bit stiff at first, but I can tell you're all right."

Zelgadiss shrugged. "I might come here next year, haven't decided."

"Oh yeah? What major?"

"Chemistry, probably. And track."

"Hey, cool. I studied that. Now I'm doing grad work in chemical engineering."

Gravos patted his brother on the shoulder with pride. "He makes bombs, so we call him Bomber."

"I thought that was because he bombed out with the girls." Zelgadiss was sure he remembered Valgaav saying that.

"Nah, it's the work. He's got a girlfriend." Gravos collapsed onto the couch, much like the way they found him earlier. "And a kid."

Valgaav shuttled his cousin out the door, leaving with smiles and 'see you laters.' "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"No, they were...funny. I can't believe I'm related to Gravos, though."

"Jillas says the same thing!" Valgaav said, and they both laughed as they picked their way around the neglected garbage cans on their way to high adventure.

* * *

On their way to the dining room, Xelloss had noted that their overnight bags had arrived and were resting on a small table by the stairs. He would have to remember to take those to their rooms later. In the meantime, he and Lina were standing just within the door to the dining room, and they were not alone.

"Xelloss? Gracious! Is that you?"

"Hello, mother. This is my good friend, Lina Inverse. Lina, I introduce to you Zelas Metallium."

Lina, not to be wowed by any adult for long, said, "Nice ta meetcha. Hey, this is some place ya got here. Xel didn't tell me you lived in a castle. Kinda dark and gloomy, but I like that aspect of it. Good looking spread on the table. This all for us?"

"If you like." If Zelas was nonplused by Lina's forthrightness, she didn't show it. She revealed nothing with her polite smile. The fine-boned woman with the chin-length blonde hair didn't look a day over thirty. She could have been her son's wife. "What happened to your face? It looks terrible. Does it hurt?"

"I ran into a door just before leaving. I plan to take some pain killers and go to bed after dinner, but thanks for asking."

"Had I been given advanced notice, I would have had rooms prepared, some entertainment planned." Zelas poked at her salad and warily watched the two guests, like a lioness on the hunt. They were her quarry, which could supplement or compromise her ongoing project. She was ever alert to impending problems. Her son in particular posed a dilemma for her-- include him or eliminate him.

"I called and left a message," Xel said in his defense as he pulled out a chair for Lina and then took his own seat nearby.

"You did? I didn't find any message from you. What number did you call?" She asked, and he told her. "Oh, I stopped using that one _months_ ago. I didn't give you my new one?"

"No." Xel was curt, holding his temper in check. He had business to conduct, but his mother was to be kept unaware of it, if at all possible. He knew that the best way to do this was to say little so that he could conceal all his motivations and not upset her.

"Must have slipped my mind. Here, dear, try the eggplant in garlic. You can have all the sausage you wish; it's too spicy for me tonight."

Lina wondered how a mother could forget to inform a son of her new phone number. But, then, she and her mother were just as estranged, so she set the thought aside for the time being. She wasn't going to let anything interfere with her meal, which she ate with her usual gusto.

"My son never brings his girlfriends home for a visit, so you must be someone special." Zelas was scrutinizing Lina warily. She was curious about this young woman who seemed to be a very cool customer under the strained circumstances, but didn't want to put her on the defensive.

Luckily, Lina's mouth was too full for her to make a sharp and most likely disparaging remark. Xel cut in. "Lina and I are on the same bowling team. She expressed an interest in Wolfpack Island, so I offered to give her a tour. I'm expected back tomorrow, so we won't be here long. It wasn't my plan to put you out, Mother."

Lina noticed that he had refrained from mentioning their work connection and thought that strange. He had his reasons, she suspected, and so did not bring it up herself. The bowling team thing sounded like a safe excuse. It became the topic for the remainder of their conversation.

"Well, I shall look forward to beating you both in our upcoming game." Zelas flicked off her beeping alarm watch. "Oh, the time! I'm afraid my time as hostess is over for the evening. The lab requires constant supervision, and now I must relieve my chief scientist. Xelloss, you can show your...friend... to the pink room across the hall from yours. It hasn't been used in a long time, but I'm sure it will do for one night." Zelas said to Xel, and then turned her attention to Lina. "I am glad you visited the beach earlier. I think our shores are quite lovely, but frequently inaccessible, sadly, because of the constant bad weather. We sit out here in the ocean with no protection from nature's whims. Tonight another storm is blowing in, I understand, so it may delay your departure tomorrow until late." Zelas concluded her speech with the placement of her napkin on her plate, and then stood. "I must go now."

"Oh? Well, nice to meet you, Mrs. Metallium," Lina said in a burst of rare polite behavior. The good food was in part the cause, but mostly Lina was frightened. There was something creepy about Xel's mother. No, Lina decided, not creepy so much as inherently evil. The woman's cold demeanor suppressed an underlying annoyance, although disguised, with their presence on her island. Lina felt it like the bass line in rock music– ever-present, but not expressed in the melody. Zelas had been surprised by their arrival, and they were most unwelcome, Lina was sure of it. And then there was the woman's unearthly youth, which had so magnetized Lina's curiosity that she repeatedly sneaked peeks at her when Zelas was attending to Xel. There was no way that woman was old enough to be Xelloss' mother. The reserve, controlled aggression, and unnatural lack of aging all put together set Lina on edge. To her it suggested a hidden agenda and evil intentions.

"Yes. Perhaps we'll meet in the morning, then. Goodnight." Zelas stepped briskly to the door and closed it after her.

"So, Xel, what now? You really off to bed so early?" With Zelas gone, Lina's spirits returned to near normal.

"That's right. It's later than you think, Lina. We didn't leave the beach until nearly ten, and now it's after eleven."

"Don't I get at least a quick tour of this place? I mean..." She paused to take in the fatigue-etched lines around his eyes and the dark bruising climbing up from his jaw. "If we go tomorrow late, we'll have time. I guess I can wait."

"I appreciate that." Xel tilted his head to the side. "I almost believe you care about me, with that rare show of sensitivity."

Lina punched his arm. "How's that for sensitivity?"

"I stand corrected, my dear. Come on." He escorted Lina out and up to the third floor, picking up their bags as they passed them. "Most of the private living quarters are on this level. This is your room," he said as he opened the door wide and flicked on a light switch. He set her bag just inside the entry.

"Oh, wow, Xel! This is great. There's a balcony and everything. I gotta tell you, when your mom said 'pink room' I was thinking something pretty perverse, but this is great."

The walls were covered in burgundy striped wallpaper with dark cherry wood wainscoting below. A small bed with a creamy bedspread and tissue-thin matching canopy occupied the center of the room. There was space at the side for a small dresser, which acted as a bedside table, and an alcove with built-in rod and hangers. The only pink item in the room was a beautiful floral carpet adorned with full-blown roses in various rich shades of pink and red. Light issued from an out-of-place modern fixture overhead.

"Where will you be?" she asked.

"I'll show you, so you don't get lost." Xelloss pointed out the bathroom a door down from hers and his room directly across from that. "I'll leave my door ajar in case you need anything."

"Not likely," she replied. "Okay, well then, I guess I'll see you in the morning. What do I do?"

"Get some sleep and wait there. I'll come get you early. I want to beat the storm out of here, if possible. Good night, Lina. Sorry I can't be any more entertaining for you tonight."

"'S okay." Lina waved and returned to her room, the pink room.

Lina flung herself upon the bed, not bothering to remove her clothes or turn down the bedclothes. She had no intention of sleeping; resting a little would do fine. But resting was difficult. She could hear all manner of things– the wind gathering force caused the windows to rattle and the gusts sounded eerily like howling. The room was stuffy, so Lina slid off the bed and unlatched the windows. A burst of wind swept her hair from her face and tossed the long, red curls in the air. She wrapped her arms around her body and shivered as the cold dampness chilled her. It was as if the weather had capriciously skipped from summer into winter while she and Xel had dinner. Then she heard the howling. It was coming from someplace else, not from the wind over the ocean.

"Wolves!" she gasped aloud. "Those must be the wolves Xel had told me about." It was a terrible sound to hear, alone like that in her room, and what was worse, there were more noises growing in intensity with the wind. All around her were the sound of voices moaning, wailing cries on the wind, and the groans of the wooden stanchions supporting the overhanging portions of the castle bending under pressure.

It took all her inner strength to step back, push the windows shut, and latch them tightly closed. Her heart pounded against her ribs, fighting to get out. "This will not make it any easier to get to sleep," she thought.

In fact, she found the dark room pressing in on her, the floral rug oppressive. "I'm not staying in here another minute."

Choosing the lesser of two evils, Lina grabbed her overnight bag, and then ran out the door and down the hall to Xelloss' room.

The first thing that Xelloss did when he entered his childhood bedroom was to give his face a thorough examination in the bathroom mirror. One side of his face had become a tight splotchy mask. Xel muttered under his breath how he'd love to take Gourry apart with his bread knife someday, which appeased his ego slightly. Certain that there were no broken bones, he brushed his teeth and swallowed two more Tylenols. He had business to conduct before he could sleep. He needed to be alert and would be better off fighting down some pain then trying to battle the fogginess of the more effective pain killers he had bought. Those he would reserve for later.

He slipped off his shoes, shirt, and pants, rolled onto his bed, and then lay beneath the covers. He had no plans to sleep. He would rest just a little, and so for his final act, he set his watch to buzz him in an hour. He allowed his mind to drift; it landed squarely on Lina and how close at hand she was, yet untouchable, particularly now that he couldn't even kiss her. She was nice to kiss, though...

"Xelloss? Xel?" Lina whispered as she entered his bedroom. It was absolutely dark, but her eyes were adjusted so that she could make out the general furniture arrangement and void stubbing a toe as she crept to his bedside.

He was dead to the world. "This is so bad an idea I probably need my head examined, but here goes..."

Lina scrambled into bed alongside Xel, soaking up his warmth gratefully. She was careful to keep a decent distance between them as she watched his face for a hint of wakefulness. He lay on his back, still; his unharmed jaw side was to her, giving her the opportunity to stare at his profile, pale against the darkness beyond. He lay motionless. Lina couldn't resist reaching out to smooth his hair, pushing the bangs back to reveal his dark eyebrows. She was struck by his usually animated features now immobile. Handsome-- perfection in still life.

"Man, am I glad no one can see this," she thought to herself. It was exactly what Xel wanted, wasn't it? Climbing into bed with Xel was what her sister had warned her about and what she had adamantly denied would ever happen to her. And yet here she was. However, she had not let him entice her into his bed; she had climbed in on her own, which made all the difference. Besides, they weren't doing anything but sleeping; at least Xel was. It was comforting to listen to him breathe and know that he was between her and the unknown terrors out _there_.

She moved closer. Her breath drawn, her movements slow and even, cautious not to jar and awaken him, she kissed him lightly on his cheek. "Night."

Lina turned over with her back to him, and fell to sleep unexpectedly in an instant.

Xelloss awoke with a jolt. When he moved to turn off his watch alarm, he noticed a weight holding his arm to the bed. It took him nearly a minute to pick out Lina's features and comprehend who she was, and another one to recover from that realization. Lina was snuggled up to his side. It was a dream come true, which, sadly for him, he was unable to build upon. Oh, he considered wrapping himself around her and enjoying her fully, but he had a purpose in coming to the island which was more time-dependent. He hoped to steal out, explore for the evidence he sought, and then return to this precisely identical position.

He was pulling on his pants when he heard Lina's sharp intake of air. "I can explain," she gasped out.

"No need. You hear the wolves? That can be scary, I know." He didn't need light to see how embarrassed she was.

"Where are you going?" she asked. She was happy for that diversion.

"Stay here. You shouldn't be running around an unfamiliar place. You'll be safer right here. I'll get things done faster without having to worry about you, and then I'll be back as soon as I can."

"I asked because I wanted to know, not to be put off with weak platitudes."

Xel reached for his shirt and sighed heavily. "Lina, I have some investigating to do. There is something going on here, I am certain, and it relates to the attack on Rezo, his lab, and the other deaths. That last one, Joe, was an employee here, as I told you."

Lina paused to absorb what he had said, and still came up empty. "You know more than you are telling me."

Unwittingly, and unfortunately, he used an arrogant tone of voice when he replied. "I know lots of things you don't, Lina, but I'm not discussing everything with you here and now."

She was standing on the bed holding him in a headlock before he could button a single button. "Think again, buster." She tightened her grip as he struggled to break free. "You're not leaving me alone in this place. I'm going with you. Nod if you understand."

He may have budged slightly. His jaw ached with the additional pressure.

"My bag's packed, if we gotta make a break for it," she said as she let go and hopped to the floor.

Xel had lost his will to argue. He had no choice since he couldn't lock her in his room. "My bag is over there, not that it matters if it got left behind. I have all I need in this." He patted a small brown leather bag that hung from his shoulder. From the look Lina gave him, he could tell hers mattered to her. "Okay, we'll carry them to the basement, where there is an underground sewer causeway to the other facilities. I'll have someone I trust load our things onto the plane and prepare it for take-off, just in case, though I hope to learn what I need to without being caught. If there's a storm coming, flying or sailing off the island may be impossible."

"Oh, it's coming, all right. The wind's blowing like there's no tomorrow."

"Then we'd better not waste any more time."

* * *

"So, what's on your agenda?" Zelgadiss asked. He couldn't feign disinterest. His eyes were dancing already. "That Cavern place I heard you mention?"

"Not to start with. The Cavern is an exclusive club. Has the best bands, deejay, and atmosphere. So, here's what I figure: we go there last."

"Like the dessert."

"Yeah, definitely the 'whipped cream and cherry on top' place. I think I know your taste in music pretty well."

Zelgadiss shrugged. "Like you and Xel, I like it all."

"Even hip hop?" Valgaav was testing the waters for Zelgadiss' taste in more ways than one.

"Ahhhh, not that one so much. Why? Is that all there is around here?"

Valgaav look changed from tense to relief. "Not entirely. No, that'll work out fine. I'll take you to a few interesting but on-the-edge kind of clubs first. Right around the corner is our first stop."

What Valgaav chose first was the least odd of all the spots he and Xel used to frequent. The Miami Nice club had a tropical theme, which meant that the walls were decorated with garish neon lights in the shapes of parrots and palm trees, and the folks at the bars drank tall drinks sporting colorful umbrellas or slices of fruit.

"Remember," Valgaav warned him. "You got a long night ahead of you. Take it slow on the drinks or you'll pass out before the fun starts."

Valgaav wandered over to a table as Zelgadiss picked up a menu from the bar. "Shark Bite, Lava Flow, Blue Banana? Gods those are drinks! That last one sounds vulgar."

"It is. Stay away from the mixed drinks. I'll do the ordering," Valgaav told him.

Zelgadiss wasn't paying much attention to him. He had found something far more compelling. "Gator bites? Is this for real? Valgaav! Do they really serve alligator here?"

Afraid that Zelgadiss might start to jump up and down like a ten-year old, Valgaav whirled around and grabbed him by the shoulders. "Yes, and you can try them, but let's not draw too much attention to us." He meant that he didn't want to be embarrassed for bring a novice into the club.

It did shut Zelgadiss up. He hadn't been allowed to leave the house with his hoodie. His silver hair and blotchy blue skin were on display for all to see. He had thought that the dark clubs would be cover enough, but he was wrong. His hair caught the light and sparkled like tinsel. A few girls giggled as he passed by. He slunk into a chair at a corner table, well out of sight of most of the other customers. "Sorry."

Valgaav smiled. "Don't worry 'bout it," he said, and then ordered gator-kabobs and two beers from their young male server.

There was no band, but there was nonstop music and few dark forms quivering in time to it on the dance floor. "The deejay's named Mojo," Valgaav told Zelgadiss, and sent a salute his way.

Zelgadiss craned his neck to get a look at the guy. "He looks more like a Bill sort of guy. 'Mojo' is probably a pseudonym."

"No doubt," Valgaav agreed. "He was a psych major last I knew."

Mojo ambled over and pulled up a chair. He sat in it backwards and draped his arms over the back. His waist-length blonde dreadlocks hung like dirty ropes over his arms. "Hey, V-bo. Howya doin? Looks like ya got yerself a new friend." He looked Zelgadiss over like he was goods for sale.

"Been okay, you're looking good. Mojo, this is my cousin Zelgadiss." Valgaav gave them both a bemused smile.

Zelgadiss nodded and frowned. "Hi." He was unused to being scrutinized by anyone like Mojo.

"You sticking 'round tonight?" Mojo might have asking Val, but his eyes were holding steady on Zel.

"No. We're making the rounds. Showing my cousin the highlights."

The deejay looked disappointed. "Too bad. Come by later, maybe. You back in fall?"

Valgaav nodded. "Yeah, maybe. Zelgadiss will be a chem major. You graduating this time around?"

"Maybe, depends. Money's good with this job, but the hours don't always work with the classes. I might have to drop classes or quit work to graduate. Another year's not so bad, either. Hey, come back so we can talk more. I'd like to get to know you, Zelgadiss. Song's over, gotta go back to the box. Later!"

"Bye." Valgaav sipped at his drink and listened to the music while Zelgadiss sampled the kabobs. "How do you like it?"

"How do I like what? This place, the music, Mojo, or the food?"

"Start with the alligator."

"The meat's like chicken, Mojo-- if I never see him again I'll survive fine, the music's okay, but loud, and this place is not really me, I guess."

Their server limped over and asked if they wanted anything more.

"No thanks. Just the bill."

"Here's your check, _mate_," the kid said glibly, and then waited for Valgaav to pay.

"Here, and if you drop the fake accent you can keep the change," Zelgadiss said as dropped a five onto the table.

"Sure thing!"

Valgaav finished off his beer. "Cool. Let's move on then."

As they reached the door the server shouted, "Ciao, baby!"

The next club they visited was a smokier, busier place, still with a tropical flavor, but more 'organic' with overhead fans, wicker bar stools, and coconut beverage cups.

"We're here to try the snacks. Head for the bar," Valgaav directed them.

Zelgadiss wore a bemused smile as he scanned the drinks others were sipping. One couple was sharing a drink that mostly ice and arguing over who 'drank it all!' A livid, smoky drink in a tall, tapered glass was just too vile-looking to be appealing, he thought, although a two-tone green concoction caught his eye. He pointed it out to Valgaav, who shook his head. "Midori sucker, I call it. Melon liquor and tequila that can make you go blind. I'll get you something green, if that's what you like."

"That's what I like," Zelgadiss said in time with the music.

The music bounced from reggae to rocksteady to ska. Currently, _Feel So Good_ was playing, which Zelgadiss recognized, but not the particular recording.

A large tumbler of green carbonated drink with ice was placed in front of him. "What's this?"

"Just try it."

"Lime and melon? I thought you said this could kill me?"

"Maybe I want you dead, ever think of that?" Valgaav gave him what Zelgadiss regarded as a very unsettling stare. He must have looked alarmed, because Valgaav immediately shot back, "Shit, man, I was just joking with you. This is non-alcoholic and might upset your stomach, but it won't kill you."

"Sorry," Zelgadiss said as blood rushed to tint his blue skin pink at the cheeks. "It's good, thanks.

_Hold Me Tight_ played next. They could see a few young people undulating with the rhythm on the dance floor.

"These are odd. Good, but strange. What am I eating?" Zelgadiss asked after downing his third pinch of crunchy finger food.

"Deep fried bugs," Valgaav answered. He hid his smile behind a bottle of sparkling water.

Zelgadiss showed considerable poise when he did not spit out his mouthful.

"It's a bug bar. One of a kind. Jamaican rum drinks are good here. At one time they had a band on Friday and Saturday nights, but not any more. Probably too small a place. They don't have enough room for all the customers good bands can draw, and the bad bands drive customers away. You like art?"

Zelgadiss hesitated to answer. Would a positive response mean they'd be visiting galleries? "Ah, some. Why?"

"Come on, I know a cool place."

Zelgadiss chased after his cousin wondering what was next.

"I'll grab a couple drinks and you find a table," Valgaav told him.

Zelgadiss was getting a bit tired of being ordered around, but then again, he never showed much initiative around his older cousins, so what did he expect?

"What's the lime for?" Zelgadiss asked.

Valgaav crushed the juice of his slice into his glass deployment before filling it to brimming with beer and dropping in the peel. "Mexican beer. Just try it."

"Not bad." Zelgadiss took another sip. "I don't know a thing about beer or wine, as you can tell, I'm sure."

"I can tell. I'm no expert, but I like this and try something knew every so often. Xel's the wine guy. Look up there. See?"

There was a narrow catwalk circling the room and disappearing into the next. "Yeah."

"We'll go up there in a minute. It's the gallery."

"Gallery, as in paintings? I thought maybe it was the route to the bathrooms."

"Gallery as in all kinds of art. Paintings, sculpture...it changes." Valgaav nodded to someone Zelgadiss couldn't see. "Here're some friends of mine..."

Zelgadiss greeted the two young men and committed their names to memory. Having contacts up here would be nice, come fall; that is, if he decided to enroll. "Nuriko and Chichiri, hi."

Both men were around their same size and ages, Zelgadiss estimated. They wore their hair long, held back in ponytails, and they were dressed in short kimono shirts left open to the waist and tied with sashes with loose silky-looking pants underneath. Nuriko shared the same penchant for makeup as Valgaav, although where Valgaav looked Egyptian, the other guy looked more like a Japanese Geisha than anything else Zelgadiss could come up with.

Chichiri, on the other hand, was fresh-faced, but badly scarred on one side and wore a large gold earring in his right earlobe. Zelgadiss and Chichiri locked eyes a moment in silent understanding.

"I like your hair," Chichiri said to Zelgadiss.

"Thanks, it used to be long and dark, but..." He said no more. Clearly, both men knew more about transfiguring injuries than they wanted to share.

"So," Nuriko interrupted gently, "I've been told you're cousins and that you're to be a freshman this fall. That's nice. We're in religious studies and martial arts. How about you?"

"Um, chemistry and track, I guess. I haven't really decided whether to come or not."

"Oh? Tell us what's stopping you and we'll do everything to change your mind!"

Chichiri said this with such good intentions, that Zelgadiss couldn't help but be drawn into the discussion. "I don't know how I'll fit in. This," he gestured to his face and hands, "happened just this summer. I'm trying to cope with it, but it's changed a lot about my life. Being out around other people, well, it's not fun."

"Oh, you'll fit in fine. Creeps are everywhere and will diss you, but there would have been people like that to denigrate the old you, too, so that's not gonna change. Besides, we think you are beautiful and perfect, having never seen you before, so it doesn't matter. Now you have to come back in fall. We won't have it any other way!" Nuriko chided him, and then laughed.

"Have you been upstairs yet?" Chichiri asked.

"No, Valgaav was telling me about it."

"You guys go on up. We'll meet you," Nuriko said. "I haven't talked to Vally in a long time."

"Okay."

"It's really very experimental art," Chichiri explained. As the soles of their shoes hit the metal rungs there was a scrape and a ringing sound. "Oh, how can you lean out like that? I get vertigo, I think."

Heights had never bothered Zelgadiss. He imagined that he had been a bird in a former life. He looked out over the railing to see figures bobbing to the best of the music and couples hunched over tables, heads together to be heard over the noise. Somewhere down there was his cousin, but he couldn't make him out. When Chichiri tapped him on the shoulder, Zelgadiss tuned around and noticed the whitewashed brick wall to the other side was dotted with paintings and drawings framed each in a unique style.

"Watch your head!"

Above them hovered a mobile which dipped and swayed with the air currents, nearly clipping Zelgadiss' wild locks.

"Psychological studies," Zelgadiss muttered. "All a bit strange. This one looks like one of my bad dreams."

"I guess its something you share with the artist. The common theme to these pieces is symbolism. You ever study art? You have a feel for interpretation."

"No, but I think I'd like to."

"So, you thinking more like you'd want to come here in fall? You'll make friends, I promise."

Zelgadiss saw the earnestness in the guy's face, and blushed hotly. "I'm leaning more toward coming, I think." He had the uneasy feeling that he might have suddenly become the object of this young man's affection, which was not intentional or desirable from Zelgadiss' point of view. He didn't want to say anything to hurt his feelings or insult him and make him mad. What if he was wrong? He knew what to say then. "I just lost my girlfriend because of the way I look, but I still want to try getting back together. There's no hope at all if I come here, because she's still in Seyruun."

Chichiri responded with a sympathetic smile. "You can give it one more try, but from my experience it's best to go with a fresh start. Oh, here's my favorite piece!"

An hour later, they rejoined their other two friends back at their table. "Nuriko suggested that we go to Cool Matter's. They've got a new conceptual art thing going on there. We can stay here longer, if you like, but Nuriko and Chichiri are heading out to a show, meeting friends."

"Let's go then," Zelgadiss decided. "We still have the Cavern to go to, right?"

"Oh, yeah. I save the best for the last."

Valgaav and Zelgadiss parted ways with their friends and wound their way out of the club and out the door. The streets were full of kids out on the town, just like them. It was Friday night, and that was party time. Everywhere they walked, people paused and stared to mark their passing. Valgaav was tall, lean, and sculpted naturally by rock climbing. He was topped with marvelous green hair and could make a stir all by himself in any crowd. When you had Zelgadiss with his otherworldly appearance at his side, it was a sight no one could miss. Zelgadiss couldn't help notice that they were being drooled over by females and males alike, and his confidence grew. He would occasionally meet the eyes of some attractive girl and smile. It was fleeting and anonymous, and so it wasn't very brave of him, but it was something.

'You look like you're having fun. Are you?" Valgaav asked him as they entered the next club. The beers had loosened him up a little, that and the friends. He had put in a call to Nuriko before leaving Seyruun, and it had paid off. He knew that for Zelgadiss this was his first bout of club drinking, and so he carefully regulated his cousin's consumption of alcohol. Zelgadiss hadn't said anything to the contrary, so Valgaav decided to continue to be the one doing the ordering. This next place would be another no-alcohol stop. After all, this was all for Zel's benefit, not for Val's.

"Yes, actually, I am. I haven't thought about my grandfather, that he was blinded in the same accident that caused...this. I haven't given a moment's thought to that random birth certificate, and how it is that I'm a relative. I have pondered my future and the effect my new appearance has on others, though. And I don't care right now." If nothing else, the beer had loosened Zelgadiss' tongue.

"That art do all that for you? Wait till you get a load of this stuff, then."

Cool Matter had previously been an old house. The owner had died several years back and his only child had shown no interest in living there, so it stood empty for years. The youngest grandson saw it as an opportunity, and poured the rest of his inheritance into creating a unique club. It had many rooms, which partitioned off different activities. Dancing occurred in the 'front room'; the bar occupied what had once been a kitchen.

Conceptual art was exhibited throughout. In a 'bedroom' the floor was covered in turf, the grass crushed by the many feet passing through. The title: Outside In.

"Well, it smells like rotting compost," Zelgadiss said as he exited the room to check the next. "So, why haven't we been carded?"

"Because I've gotten the drinks and they know me and trust me. This place I've not been to so they should and the Cavern always does. They won't even let you past the door without ID." Valgaav hesitated at the entry to the next room. "What do you think?"

"The cages are extreme, but the people inside them probably belong there." Zelgadiss approached one of the cages with a girl inside. It was 4 feet by 3 feet, so he crouched low beside it to talk to her. "So, how're you doing in there? Need anything? Food? Water?"

"Yeah, but then I'd have to go and my shift's not over for two more hours so... no...thanks. You part of a show?" She had an unkempt look, but he thought it had something to do with her incarceration.

"No, this is...natural," he said as he gauged her response.

She took in his exotic looks then shrugged. "Nice."

He smiled and asked, "You get paid to do this?"

"No, I'm a grad student doing a favor for a friend. Over there, the girl in the smaller cage? It's her master's thesis. She'll help me out when the time come for me to do mine."

"Oh, so you're a student at the university."

"Yeah, isn't everybody?" she asked.

He felt good thinking that she mistook him for another student, maybe one her age. "Yeah, mostly. Well, see you around, eh?"

"I'll see you for sure. Maybe you'll do a thing for me?"

"For one of your art projects? Sure. Not until fall, though. I got this job in Seyruun now."

"That's cool. I'm Nicene."

"Zelgadiss."

He left the room and went looking for Valgaav. Zelgadiss wore a wry smile and decided that everything was going to be just fine. He would work and save money this summer, then get Valgaav to room with him and come back here. Here. He could get to think of this as home, he was sure of it. Well, maybe. He'd see, anyway.

He located Valgaav on the dance floor. He was dancing alone, or with five other people, it was hard to tell. Feeling good, Zel danced out to meet him and joined in with the crowd for the next few songs as well. The music was alternative and likely from local bands passing out free CD's trying to get publicity. Soon, he found himself pinned between two guys, getting closer than comfortable. Using his athleticism, He leaped and spun and slid out of the ever tightening cluster, and then the song was over.

Valgaav joined him at the bar, where they both ordered sodas. Zelgadiss asked the expert, "Why is it that there are so many... you know..._gay_ guys at these bars?"

"They're mostly gay bars." Valgaav took a long drink and let his words soak in.

"Oh? So, you aren't gay. I know you like Amelia, so why?"

"Well, you got your two kinds of bars here. There are the hip hop music bars or the gay bars for different music. Most folks end up infiltrating the gay bars and turning them into mainstream. Plus the lines are fuzzy."

"What lines?"

"All kinds of lines, Zelgadiss. Like the way you feel about your grandfather. He's practically raised you, so you must love him, and yet, you hate that he may have had something to do with your accident, even if it was just being in the wrong place..."

"The bastard made me quit the job I liked and made me work for him and then got me blown up! He's involved with something bad, or he would have tried to see me afterwards, regardless of his own injuries. He's guilty and can't look me in the eye."

"So, why don't you confront him about all this if you think he's to blame? If he's innocent then you'll be able to forgive the man before he dies. If he's not, and you're right about the guilt thing, then maybe you can hit him up for the truth about your mother. Would Rezo be her father or your father's?"

"My father's," Zel mumbled. He looked away, glum again. What Valgaav had said sounded reasonable, but how he felt was anything but. Zelgadiss needed to blame someone, to hate someone for his disfigurement.

"Hey, sorry. I shouldn't have said all that. This was supposed to be recreational, not a drilling."

"Yeah, well, what you said made sense, too." Zelgadiss rubbed his eyes with a fist, and then cleared his throat. "We have one more club to go to?"

"Yeah, a special one, but only if you want to."

"Let's go."

* * *

After handing their overnight bags to a trusted servant, Xel and Lina hunted for the underground sewer entranceway. Xel illuminated patches of the floor with his tiny, but bright, beam from his mini-flashlight, scanning deliberately for a particular marked cover. "It has a funny mark. This one!"

He pocketed the light, and then used both hands to yank open the heavy grate. With the top off, Lina peered into the dark pit. "Just how dirty is it down there?"

"It's a storm sewer. When it's dry, like now, it should be fine. After a storm, we'd have to swim."

Lina knew from the wind she'd felt before that a storm was coming. They would have to move fast and immediately. "How do we get down?"

"There's a ladder, but it's about four feet down so you can't see it or reach it. Here, I'll lower you into the hole. Kick in and you'll hit it."

It was too late to go back now, so Lina agreed. It wasn't the dark or the unknown that bothered her so much, she loved mysteries. It was the thought of all the slimy things she might encounter down there. She hated all manner of slimy creatures, slugs in particular. In a leap of faith, Lina sat on the edge, then suspended by Xelloss' arms alone, was lowered into the darkness.

He had been right. There was a metallic ring as Lina's hit the rungs after just a few seconds. "Contact!"

"Go on a ways so I don't step on your hands or something."

"Don't let go until I gotta grip here!"

"Of course. I wouldn't let you fall, Lina." While still holding onto her hands, Xel knelt lower to the ground until he finally had flattened himself on the pavement around the opening.

He let her tug one hand free at a time, but didn't move until she called out, "Okay, there's room for you now."

Xelloss maneuvered the manhole cover back over his head as he joined Lina in the sewer. "Just keep going down. You'll hit the bottom rung in about twenty feet, then wait for me, or you can hop to the floor– about a three foot drop. No, better just wait for me at that point."

"As if I'd go running off alone," Lina grumbled. "Stumbling about in a sewer with no idea where I was headed in pitch darkness."

The only sound was that of their shoes scraping the rungs for a minute, and then Lina cried out, "Oh!"

Xel had jumped past her to the floor and switched on the overhead lights. From a hard-edged, cold, black pipe to a ghastly green glowing tube, their world was transformed instantly with the light.

"Why didn't you warn me before you did that? Hey, wait up!" Lina shouted as Xelloss jogged off.

"Keep moving, Lina," he said over his shoulder. She had no choice but to pick up the pace and run. "This is a causeway, so keep to the center where there's a raised walk, or you're likely to get your feet wet."

"Wet?" She shouted out, and then remembered that sewers carried detritus in a current of water. Although it didn't smell noisome, her imagination filled the concealed depths with foul things. "Yeah, sure. Thanks."

Other than the firmness of the cement block beneath her feet, the situation was otherworldly. They ran through a fuzzy blackness with their beginning concealed and no visible end ahead, punctuated every ten feet by a dim luminous glow from the overhead service lights. Lina felt it was endless, mesmerizing in its sameness. Her eyes remained focused on Xelloss ahead, trusting him to point out any traps or dangers. The sound of their heavy breathing and the sound of their footfalls were all she had to root her mind in the here and now. They ran a couple miles before Xel encountered a crossing, and slowed to a stop while he considered which way to go.

Lina was thankful for the break to catch her breath. "Lost?"

"No, we can take either path. I was just waiting for you to catch up, and see if you needed a rest."

"I can keep up with you. No problem. Get moving!"

Xel shook his head. Lina impressed him with her resiliency. "A few hundred more feet in this direction and we climb again."

"What's above us?" Lina asked as Xel reached the top rung of the ladder and stopped. Her hand grazed his ankle in her search for the next rung to hold onto. "Sorry," she mumbled. The personal contact embarrassed her, but he hadn't noticed, or indicated that he had.

"Research laboratory records. Ready? I'll climb up first, then give you a hand up."

Xel pushed the sewer cap open a crack and paused to listen. There was no sound or light coming from the room above them. Satisfied that it was safe, Xelloss pulled himself up over the lip of the opening. It took two hands with some muscle behind it to lift Lina off the last rung. Her fingertips could only touch the lip of the opening when she stood on tip toes. When he had her steady on her two feet he embraced her in a brief hug. "Glad you're small. It makes me feel needed."

"Idiot," she muttered into his shirt. "Let me go and tell me what we're looking for."

"The door," he quipped, and was rewarded with a slap to his arm. "We are in a utility space where the electrical and power supply lines run." He again flicked on his micro flashlight and swept the beam over a far wall. "Clear. Follow me and be quiet. There may be personnel on the other side of that door."

Lina nodded and straightened her blouse. "Ready."

They crept out of the darkness into a dimly lit room. Lina could make out the hum of several computers and the light from their glowing screens, some blue, others green. In the shadows there stood tall filing cabinets and bookcases. Xelloss nudged her arm and directed her attention to the far side of the room where another door appeared below a backlit sign warning them that they were entering a high security area. Clearly, this was where they wanted to be.

"What do they do here?" Lina whispered.

"Pathology, run medical tests just like a hospital. Mostly." He put a finger to his lips and cautioned her to silence as he picked a path to the door.

Where you would expect a handle to be, was a security lock activated by entering a code on the keypad. Xelloss had already gathered the necessary codes for his earlier database investigation into Joe's identity, so he wasted no time typing in what he knew would work. With a mechanical click, the bolt drew back, and the door slid back into the frame, making a sound of escaping air. Lina was unprepared for the scene before her, but was insistent. "Let's go!"

**End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 15.**


	16. Fun and Games

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 16 -Fun and Games**-

Did you know that:

In the Spanish Pyrenees, when a beekeeper dies, each of his bees is splashed with a drop of black ink?

* * *

"How about that place over there?" Zelgadiss pointed out _Hot Rocks!_

"Hip hop music and druggie hangout," Valgaav said simply.

"Heh, heh... sounds like your house once-upon-a-time." Zelgadiss smiled at the not-so-old memories he had of his current neighborhood before he moved into the house. "Jillas and Gravos really 'bent up' the neighborhood when they were living there. No one knew they'd moved out; we all thought you and Xel were big-time drug lords. Not that you might not be now, in a really low key way. Though, I mean, if you guys have anything going on, I haven't noticed it."

Valgaav knew his cousin wouldn't ordinarily reveal suspicions like that. It gave him a clue as to how low an alcohol tolerance his friend had. "Shit no, no drugs. And it would be easy for Xel to write up a few prescriptions, too. No, you escape reality and you quickly run into a dead end. If you're considering drugs, you haven't done enough autopsies yet. The kids are heartbreakers and the older folks are pitiful."

"Hey, I'm clean. Weaned off pain killers and everything!" Zelgadiss held up his hands to ward off any more attacks, and then broke into low-toned giggles.

"Sensitive issue for me. My brothers, well, it's taken them a while to clean up. Gravos, because of sports, was first, but Jillas was in rehab a year or he'd a graduated already."

Zelgadiss sobered up gradually. "And he has a kid, really?"

"Sorta. His current girlfriend has a little boy that adores him, and I think it's mutual. She's got a job someplace out of town, so she doesn't live with him now, which is why Gravos is there. This next year will be one for changes."

Zelgadiss nodded. "I thought maybe Jillas was kinda...weird...makeup and all."

"And I'm not?"

"You're different, but that's not the weird I meant."

"You meant you thought my brother was _gay_?"

Zelgadiss, afraid his friend was going to hit him, backed off a ways. "I made a mistake. Sorry."

"Maybe Gravos is, not Jillas. Surprised, huh?"

Zelgadiss was. Valgaav laughed at Zelgadiss' shocked expression. "That bothers you? Well, it's not true either. Just testing you. It does bother you, huh?"

"Some," Zelgadiss admitted cautiously. "I guess I don't read guys very well. I thought Xel was too, but only at first." He became worried as soon as Valgaav broke into a grin. "No, please! Don't tell him, okay?"

Valgaav was holding his mid-section and laughing so hard he was bent double.

"What? You know what I'm saying, right? Right? Stop it, Valgaav! People are staring."

"Peeeeeeople are ssstaring!" Valgaav howled like a maniac. "Zelgadiss, you are _such_ a prude."

At which point Zelgadiss noticed that his cousin was wearing bicycle shorts under the kilt, and that, combined with Valgaav's cutting assessment of him, caused his temper to flare and the blood to rise to his face. Without another word and without the vaguest idea where he was going, he raced off down the street.

* * *

"Oh, wow," Lina gasped. "This looks like a scene from some futuristic movie, you know what I mean?" She had kept her voice low, but Xel was frowning at her anyway.

"Shhhh... Yes. We must be quick. Opening that door may have alerted a guard monitoring the activity here. Every room is under surveillance. It's just a matter of someone doing his job or not." Xel moved stealthily to a wall of lab tables and filing cabinets.

"How do you know this is the lab you're looking for?"

"I have been doing a lot of hunting. There is a virtual layout for the entire complex, all but one area."

"This one, I take it?"

"Not in detail, yes. I've spent hours tracing links through databases, and what I found was disturbing. I need concrete evidence and a few files ought to do it."

"Sure we can find those few files in here?"

"Find them? Yes. Before we're caught? I don't know." Xelloss said as he searched a filing cabinet in a systematic manner.

"I'll just have a look around, then," Lina said.

"Don't go far. Stay out of sight. There might be someone on the other side of the partition. I don't know. We can't see through the dividers."

She let out a snort. As if she hadn't more sense than a two-year-old! The room was large and compartmentalized. When they had entered, the reflection of dozens of metal vats was visible from the black, glazed walls, but once the door closed and the outer light gone, the images were shielded behind smoky glass. "I wanna peek at what's in those giant test tube things. They look like torpedoes."

Xel pulled out file after file, removing the contents and stuffing them into his shoulder bag. He had been correct in assuming the paper file organization would mirror that of the computer database, which he had stumbled onto while researching Joe's whereabouts. At the time he wasn't entirely sure what the data represented. Many inmates of the penitentiary and of the asylum had been transferred to the lab section. This could be explained by a disease breakout or a mass riot, had it been a one-time occurrence. Instead, the medical records showed a constant flow of ten patients a day, year after year. Sometimes as many as twenty, or as few as five, but on the average ten souls were moved from their residences to the labs, never to return. The trail ended there, _here_.

What was being done to these people was recorded partly in meaningless code, the remainder in clear, passionless medical lingo, and it made Xel's skin crawl. "Patient #395 injected with 10 cc of #48u48 extraction in collagen matrix."

He had copied as many files as he could find, but he knew the importance of having hard copy evidence in a court of law. He wanted to trace a couple of the inmates and their treatments through this lab to their subsequent destination. He located particular coded names, pulled the papers, stored them, and then moved to the next code. He gritted his teeth against the throbbing of his jaw. His hands trembled as he concentrated on moving as rapidly as possibly, while at the same time listening for interference. He could hear Lina's shoes creak, and then nothing else until she rejoined him a minute later. She tugged at his arm. "What is it?"

"Y-you gotta come." Her face was pale, her lips bloodless. Whatever she had seen, it had frightened her.

Xel as closed up his shoulder bag his fingers felt for another tool hidden inside. His bread knife was secure and close at hand. He shifted the heavy bag over his back and out of the way. "Okay."

* * *

Valgaav could tell that he'd pushed his sensitive younger cousin too far. Zelgadiss did not accept teasing well. "Hold up!" he shouted to Zelgadiss' retreating back. "Sorry, man, but you make it so easy sometimes. Listen, I'm sorry I laughed at you, okay?"

Zelgadiss slowed down, letting Valgaav catch up to him. He had been having a great time and he hated for misunderstandings to ruin it all, especially if it was him being the temperamental one.

Valgaav wanted to explain. "I was the youngest brother and grew up taking all kinds of shit all the time. I forget you're an only child. Must have been lonely."

Zelgadiss recognized a propitiatory gesture when he heard it, and cooled off immediately. "I was spoiled rotten and neglected at the same time for the most part. I was on my own. My parents were on lecture tours traveling most of the time and I stayed with 'grandpa.' It was crappy when I was little, but after awhile I liked the freedom and the stuff."

"They didn't get you a car, though?"

"No. And I wasn't smart enough to start saving my money soon enough, or I'd be able to afford one now." He put all his irritation into his tone of voice.

"And money for college? You got that?"

"I have a scholarship for track. I don't know if I can face looking like this... for_ that_."

"Yeah, the showers and the locker room might be rough at first, but the other guys will get used to it. It's their problem, not yours."

Zelgadiss nearly froze Valgaav in his tracks with his piercing, icy stare. "I hadn't even thought about _that_ problem. I was just thinking of running the track and what the spectators might think."

Valgaav swallowed hard. "Things will work out, Zelgadiss. The only person bothered by the way you look right now is you; the only one that matters, that is."

"And Filia and... How do _you_ know that anyway? You a mind reader now?"

"Okay, I don't know, but I can see how receptive folks are around you. They are more inquisitive, or even fascinated, than repulsed. And as for Filia, well, it's harder for those who knew you the way you were before to get used to the way you are now. Xel and me, we hardly knew you. I can't even remember how you looked dark."

"Liar," Zelgadiss snapped, but regretted it instantly. "Sorry, I take that back. You're trying to make me feel better."

"Better about _yourself_, yeah." Valgaav watched as Zelgadiss' eyes softened. He looked lost in thought, so Val gave him a moment to think.

Zelgadiss was struck suddenly with the difference between how Valgaav and his other close friends had treated him and that of his own family. His parents had sent him a single card since the accident. "One damned card! That's all they've sent. Dad asked if I needed anything. Mom asked after Rezo, if I'd been in contact with him. I didn't write back."

The sudden switch in subjects caught Valgaav off guard, so he listened.

"How could a mother not care about her son? She was always distant, but some people are just that way, but no... I never wanted to admit to myself that she didn't love me. But now, I can, suddenly."

"You're thinking about what Sylphiel found?"

"Yeah, and I'm beginning to think there's something to that. It would explain a few things."

"I don't know. Why would that need to be a big secret? Rezo had his chance to explain it once we all asked about how you come to be a cousin, unless there's something to hide."

"What are you thinking?"

"Oh, not much. It could be something embarrassing to explain, like an affair or something like that. You should be told, though."

"Would you go with me to confront Rezo?"

"Sure, I'd do that. No problem." Valgaav paused to ascertain Zelgadiss' mental state. "You're coming to grips with all this."

"Yeah. Nothing I can do about it tonight, so, to quote Lina, 'What the hell. I should have fun,' right?"

"That's the idea," Valgaav said, sharing a quick smile with his cousin.

They slowed as they approached a small crowd of garishly dressed young people waiting to enter a club. Zelgadiss had to get closer to read the name above the door. Written in an old fashioned script in white lettering on black, and under-lit with a yellow light, the sign read: The Cavern.

* * *

When Lina dropped to her hands and knees, Xel did, too. She had led them to the edge of one of the metal seven-foot-long tubes. One end was tapered and enclosed in brushed, non-reactive stainless steel. The other had a slightly raised dome of Lucite on the top side of the steel form. "Look inside." 

"Oh, my..." Xelloss was stunned, even after knowing what he might discover.

It was a human face, submerged in a gel-like material. The head was shaved, the eyes open and milky gray, the skin flawless, ageless.

"It can't be real, can it? I mean, it can't be alive in there; there's no air!"

The lights on the container's display showed otherwise. "Not that I can explain here, but..." Xel stopped. Lina was crawling over to another test subject.

"Same thing," Lina whispered. She pointed beyond the next dividing wall.

"No," Xel hissed. "We must leave." But she was out of earshot already.

"Eek!" The outburst came from Lina. "Getcher nasty slimy hands off me!" she shouted. "You...you..."

Xelloss was on his feet and rummaging through his bag for his weapon. This was an unfortunate twist to the night's end.

Lina squirmed in the arms of her abductor to get a good look at him. His protuberant lips, sallow complexion, and wall-eyed look made her think of some creature. She spouted the first thing that came to mind. "You...fish-faced freak!"

She thrashed like a fish herself and broke free. He hurled himself at her. To avoid being squashed, Lina leaped onto a ceramic topped lab table. Upon it was a body. When Lina's foot failed to locate a stabilizing surface, she lost her balance and fell onto the flaccid torso. Her arms shot out in time to hinder the impact, catching her weight before falling hard onto the body. She glanced down into a pink-skinned face like a wax museum character covered in a thick, clear, gooey substance. Her arm touched and stuck. "Ah" she cried out in horror, repelled by the feeling. She pulled away making a sucking noise, and hardly noticed her attacker as he picked up a weapon.

"No one calls Noonsa names and lives!" the lab employee growled. He grabbed haphazardly at the array of dissecting tools arranged on the table beside the still figure and moved on Lina.

"Xel!" Lina screamed. She kicked the outstretched arm away as Noonsa closed in.

"Who?" Noonsa turned slightly toward the sound of oncoming footfalls.

"That takes guts," Xel stabbed at the other man. He slid his blade in from the side of his midsection, then twisted and brought the blade to the front. In seconds, he dispatched the man. "Too bad yours are on the floor."

Noonsa fell to the floor, blood and intestines spilling from his wound, fluid bubbling up his throat and out his mouth.

Lina winced and averted her eyes. She knew she should be feeling a wide range of horrific feelings at the moment. Instead, she was excited and feeling stronger in the super-charged atmosphere around her. She thought maybe it was the ozone in the air caused by the storm.

Xel wiped off his blade onto Noonsa's ruined lab coat and returned it to his bag. He took a moment to bloody-up the knife the man had been threatening Lina with, clean off his own fingerprints, and then replace it in the fallen man's hand.

"You think that will look like a suicide?" Lina asked, figuring out what he was doing.

"If it confuses_ someone_, it might buy us time. Now, follow me, and don't slip in the puddle."

"What are those for?" Lina asked as she watched Xel rip the cushions off a desk chair.

"Help me," he gasped. With a grunt they collected two, which Xel tucked under the arm not securing his bag. "Now run!"

Lina and Xel retraced their steps to the electrical maintenance room. As Xelloss fought to open the sewer lid, Lina said, "I don't hear anyone after us, Xel."

"Not yet, but don't worry. They'll..." His voice was silenced by an alarm. "Activated by a guard someplace. They may not have found the body, yet. Climb down. We may yet get out of this."

This time Lina could hear the rush of water before her feet reached the last rungs. "Xel! It's like a river down here. The storm must have hit."

"It reached the mountains first; this is the run-off from that. If we hurry, we still might be able to fly out of here." More than anything he wanted to reach out and re-assure her that they'd make it. "You can swim, can't you?"

"Yeah, but it's damn cold. What about the papers in your bag?"

He patted the bag as he said, "Sealed in water-tight evidence bags. They'll be fine. Now, I'm handing you a cushion. Can you grab it?"

Lina reached up and felt him press the chair pad into her hand. "Got it. So, I use this to float on?"

"That's the idea. When the cold constricts your muscles and they no longer keep you afloat, this should help. They aren't great, but the water isn't deep yet and if we're lucky we won't need them at all."

He could sense her hesitancy to enter the water, and he ached to ease her fears, but they hadn't time to waste. "I'm going around you. I'll test the depth."

Lina felt his warm hard body brush past, then heard the splash as he hit bottom. "Not yet three feet deep. Jump, I'll support you."

Total darkness, a fast-flowing river of unclean water, uncertain footing– "All right!" she shouted and left her safe perch. "Ah!" she gasped as the icy coldness slapped her in the face. She was knee-deep and dripping, but his strong hand held her steady. "O-okay. I'm okay, but don't let go, yet."

"I'm going to turn the emergency overhead lights back on, Lina. They time out after a couple hours. Hold on to my belt."

That meant stuffing her hand down his pants, and holding onto the waistband with all her strength. She would have laughed at the ridiculousness of it had she not been the tough girl she was. She would not let the stress cause her to break down into hysterics, either.

The light helped, barely. Xelloss moved them back to the raised concourse and plowed forward. They were making terrible time, and Lina knew it. She wished that the water would simply go away or get higher so they could swim, then she heard the roar she knew was a wall of water coming at their backs. "Be careful what you wish for, Lina," she muttered to herself. "Xel, water's coming!"

"Hold on!" he had time to shout. The water slammed Lina into his back. She wrapped both legs around his middle and clenched the cushion to his side.

The water lifted Xel off his feet and propelled them down the pipeline at over 20 miles per hour. "Whooeee!" Lina shouted as they rode the wave. "Surf's up!"

She maneuvered her float to help stabilize them and enjoyed the ride. Good times never lasted long, she knew. You had to make the best of them when you could. Besides, at best the water wasn't over five feet deep, which wasn't as bad as it could be. She didn't want to think about how truly dangerous their situation was, since it wouldn't help to get panicky. Instead, she rose to the occasion and lent Xelloss some assurance with her show of bravado.

She was wondering how they would know where to stop, if that was even possible, and was about to ask Xel, when a chalk-drawn "XL" encircled by a tilted, roughly drawn heart appeared, luminescing faintly by the foot of a ladder. Water had lapped at the bottom point and washed it off, but the glow-in-the-dark message was unmistakable. This was their getting off point, which Xelloss had marked at some time in the not so distant past.

Lina pinched him slightly with her knees, to show she cared, one way or the other, and then helped paddle to the side, aiming for the exposed rungs. The current was powerful, but Lina and Xel together fought their way across the few feet and hung onto the first metal foothold they could grab onto. Both cushions escaped their owners and were swept away.

"UP!" Xel said with an effort as his lifted her with one arm to clear the water. "Go! I'm right behind you.

Lina didn't have time to marvel at his strength. Her hands and legs were so numb with cold she couldn't move, but she had to. If she didn't, Xel would remain longer in the cold. He had to feel as bad as she did, or even worse. She remembered his face injury, the bodies in the lab room, then Zelas. The cold shock of her memory brought their dire circumstances into focus, and Lina willed her muscles to action. "Climb!"

In a climb that took forever, Lina had no room in her head for any thoughts beyond the immediate. Climb, don't lose your grip. One more.

Her fingers hit the lid when she reached the uppermost rung. Thrusting her fingers upwards with all her might wouldn't make it budge. It was impossible for her to push hard enough to open the top.

"That's great, Lina. Move over as far as you can so I can get around you. Hold tight," Xel said. He moved with the grace of a gymnast, never losing his balance or misjudging a distance, as he swung out to the side, up, and over her to come to a crouch on the top rung. Magically, or so it seemed from Lina's perspective, the escape hatch opened. The hole yawned overhead, but this time Lina didn't pause. As Xel reached a hand out, she grabbed it and jumped up, letting him pull her though. Once again, they stood wrapped around each other in a brief moment of mutual comforting. Lina could feel his body shaking, and she knew he could feel hers, too.

"We have to get to safety and out of these wet clothes fast." He had to shout as his voice was ripped away by the loud wind.

His penlight flicked on, and Lina was confused by the unexpected surroundings. Wind was blowing off the airstrip, and even though they were partially under cover, it felt as cold as the dead of winter. "Where are we?"

"We're near the airfield where we landed. We have to run to the plane. That means follow me. Stay to the shadows. We'll be visible and exposed for a hundred feet or so, then I'll go first, open the door then you c-climb up and j-jump in. Okay?" His teeth were starting to chatter. He searched Lina's eyes for understanding. "Trust me?"

"You got us this far, sure. Go for it."

His eyes filled with warmth. He wanted to thank her, to tell her how fantastic she was, and how he felt at that moment, but then he felt a few drops of rain pelt his face. Words would have to wait. "Okay."

* * *

"Lina, yeah. She would say something like that. What do you think Lina's doing right now?" Valgaav asked. 

"Probably out with Gourry, eating, having a good time. She'll be relaxed, well rested and bored, ready for Sunday's bowling."

"That's boring?"

"For Lina. She likes action and lots of it. Her idea of a good time would be skydiving, if she could afford it." Zel shook his head thinking about his wild friend.

"I'll bet you collected stamps as a kid," Valgaav said.

Zelgadiss looked at him askance. "Are you saying I'm boring?"

"You're cautious. What makes you think collecting stamps is boring, anyway?"

"Well, I actually did," Zelgadiss admitted, which set Valgaav off laughing again.

This time, Zelgadiss just sighed and then asked, "So, why doesn't everyone just go in instead of standing outside, speaking of _boring_?"

"The Cavern is an exclusive club. They're waiting for the door to open. That tall thin dude's Gabriel, whose job it is to ID kids and omit only those on 'the register,' which is a mysterious list he keeps in his head. Next to him is Spauld, the bouncer. If Gabriel gives you the okay, then you get in, but if not, you'd better leave or you'll meet the hard end of Spauld."

"Will _we_ get in? He won't freak when he sees me, will he?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? Keeps your life from being boring?"

Zelgadiss elbowed Valgaav in the ribs.

Valgaav was in a good mood and chuckled at his cousin's new unflappability. "All right, on the contrary, he will adore you, just wait."

Zelgadiss sneaked looks at the other kids around him and noticed that they were all wearing the heavy eye makeup Valgaav adorned for non-work occasions. That made him feel better about the stuff he was wearing.

* * *

Lina and Xelloss took off, stumbling over trash and fuel lines, broken free from their holdings in the wind. Lina could hear voices shouting over the wind. Friend or foe, she didn't know. She wasn't happy to have to entrust her life with anyone, but in this case she had no choice but to do as Xelloss said, and run. 

"Sherra, no! You've risked enough. I'll fly us out, you co-pilot. You'll have to bring it back after the storm has passed." Xelloss had outrun Lina and was already climbing aboard the plane and giving orders.

Lina could hear the whine of the engine turbines preparing to taxi out to the runway.

Again, she accepted Xel's hand-up into the plane. The rain-slick surface was treacherous, and numbness made each step uncertain. "Thanks," she said between gritted teeth.

Xel said nothing, and she hadn't expected him to. He slammed shut the door behind them, then moved quickly to the cockpit. Lina fell into a seat, her shivering had become non-stop. She was both physically miserable and wishing for a hot shower and a warm bed, and mentally excited and ready to meet the next challenge. Her attention remained on this new addition to their team, the young woman called Sherra. Lina watched her toss Xelloss a blanket, and longed for one herself, but the other two were busy looking at dials and displays on an overhead readout display. Lina felt like the neglected passenger that she was.

Xel strapped himself into the pilot's chair. Lina could just make out his voice and that of Sherra's in the copilot seat. "Wind's blowing out of the NW at 30 knots and rising. Waves are cresting at 6 feet so no ships can be deployed," Sherra said. "I'm computing the take-off vectors."

Xel motioned for her to leave him to do it. "Help Lina before she goes into shock. She has a clothes change in her bag." He immediately turned back to checking his instruments.

Lina admired the way the other woman moved with self-assurance that spoke of experience, proficiency, and talent; she had important things to do and was executing each one of her assignments with dispatch. Lina sat balled up, shivering; furious at herself for how she needy and useless she felt. Lina could also tell that the young woman was deeply devoted to Xel and possibly in love with him as well, which added to her irritation.

Reluctantly, or so Lina thought, Sherra did as she was told. "Here, wrap up in this while I find your bag."

Lina took the offered blanket with a grateful, "thanks," then started kicking off water-soaked shoes and peeling off soggy socks. It was difficult stripping out of wet clingy clothes in the limited space of the lurching vehicle. "We're moving?"

"Yes, to the best runway, but conditions are terrible." Sherra dropped Lina's open bag at her feet. "Is the other one Xel's?"

"Yeah," Lina answered as she dove for her dry pants and shirt.

Lina felt a twinge of jealously as the woman with the long black braid sorted through Xel's personal things until she came up with a pair of socks. She couldn't help but note how lovely Sherra was. Pretty, elegant, and wholly capable-- everything Lina was not feeling about herself at the moment. Lina wondered how intimate the two had been, or still were.

"Dry feet is a start," she said, then left Lina to her own devices.

Lina continued to observe Sherra as she crouched low, tore off Xel's shoes, rolled off his wet socks, and replaced them with the dry ones. She leaned close to his ear and asked him something. Lina wondered how Xel could concentrate on what he was doing with that girl fussing around him. He answered with a shake of his head, and then gently pushed her away. Clearly, he wanted no more interference. "I coulda told ya that," Lina muttered under her breath to no one.

He had taxied onto a runway. "Buckle up, Lina. It's going to be a rough one."

"Gotcha!" Lina moved up to the seat behind his and tightened her seatbelt. She leaned as far forwards as she could and watched the glowing dials and dark view out the window.

"It's unadvisable," Sherra was saying, but the rest of her cautionary words were drowned out by the turbines as Xelloss pushed the throttle up more, and propelled them down the runway.

* * *

Gabriel was Valgaav's height, but he was dangerously slim and had an unhealthy coloring, like someone who smoked and partied nightly. "Vally! What'sup, dude?" 

"Doing good. You?"

"Tight, man. Ohmygods! I love him! Is this boy for real? Where did you find him? He is absolutely precious. Can he sing?" Gabriel would have continued to gush over Zelgadiss for some time, had they let him.

"He's my cousin, Zelgadiss. I'd like to show him a classy place." Valgaav stepped closer to the entrance and stuffed a twenty into the man's hand. "That ought to handle the cover charge. We haven't much time."

"Oh, of course you can take him in. Go on, go on. I'll find you at break," Gabriel waved them past the herd. A wave of complaints followed as kids excluded from entering made their sentiments clear.

Zelgadiss was about to express his resentment at being singled out in that manner, when he was sucked into a velvet darkness of the narrow entry. Valgaav nudged him a few steps, where he was forced to turn, and then stopped. He had to adjust to the change in light, beginning with the haunting illumination coming from the enormous bar, which was lit solely with tiny twinkling lights behind glass etched in the shapes of underground stalactites and blue neon tubes spelling out The Cavern above the gleaming black counter.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and followed Valgaav's arm pointing off to the side. Zelgadiss gasped in awe; his attention drawn to a mesmerizing dance floor, dimly lit from beneath with sulphurous-hued lights that pulsated in rhythm with the music's beat. The floor reminded Zelgadiss of a deep underground mineral pool which was wide where he could see it, and then branched off, flowing in multiple directions, like the arms of an octopus. Seating appeared to be carved out of the rock-face interior, giving patrons private caves to hide in or larger gathering places. "There are several rooms, one has the stage and band and the music gets piped all over," Valgaav told him.

"There's a band?" Zelgadiss asked excitement in his eyes.

"Oh, yeah. The cover charge pays for the band and gives them control over their clientele. What do you want to do first?"

"See the band," Zelgadiss said without a moment's thought.

* * *

Jillas and Gravos stood at the entrance to the Cavern club; Jillas annoyed, but not frustrated, and his older brother befuddled. "Huh?" Gravos grunted. "We don't get in? V-bo did."

"Well, Valgaav has his secret ways, but so do I," Jillas said with a quick adjustment of his eye-patch. The Cavern staff had refused them admittance based on past incidences, but Jillas, a high-spirited and cunning young man, was not about to let that get him down. "Follow me."

They trotted briskly around the corner to the alley and up to the backstage entrance. "Look like you belong here and we'll be okay," Jillas advised. "Don't look nervous."

Gravos knocked at the door. He had to pound harder a second time before a tired looking man opened it a crack. "What're you doing out here? Band's waiting to go on!"

"Smoking," Jillas said glibly, jumping into whatever role it took to get in. "We gotta change fast. Which way to the dressing rooms?"

The stage hand pointed one way, and the two trespassers slipped past him down the hall. "See? No sweat. Now, we gotta find our way to the bar."

"Ah, bro?"

"Just follow my lead," Jillas said, and then turned, crushing his nose into a solid wall of Spauld, the bouncer.

Jillas was small enough for the strong man to carry out by the scruff of his neck, while Gravos followed obediently behind. Jillas was dropped on the step. "Don't let me catch you sneakin' back in, yuh hear?" Spauld told them, then slammed shut the back entrance. They could hear the bolt thrown into place to lock the door securely. "We got thrown out!" Jillas said incredulously. "I can't believe that!"

"Yer clothes got dirt on them," Gravos pointed out.

"Well, damn. You're right, Gravity-brain. That just plain sucks. Now I gotta go back home and change." He stood and brushed off his clothes, smearing grease further over his pants. He started off, then turned. "You coming?"

"Guess so," Gravos sighed and began the long walk back where they'd started from.

* * *

Lina could not see anything out the cockpit window, which meant Xel couldn't either and would have to rely on the onboard computer system to guide his takeoff and ascent. They were escaping on the leading edge of storm, and no one had to tell her how dangerous their situation was. 

One moment she was weightless, the next she was slammed hard into her seat as the powerful winds buffeted the small craft. Lina gripped the armrests and gritted her teeth.

"We're losing altitude!" Sherra cried out.

Xel simply replied, "I know," and continued to concentrate on his vast array of dials and green-faced display screen.

Even as he pushed the speed up, the nose dipped and rose as the wind whipped them with turbulence. Lina was reminded of a coin-operated bull ride, and so she imagined she was riding a bronco, instead of thinking about the plane bucking up and slamming down hard and possibly to its doom.

Lina recalled the events of the past few hours, but only one picture remained vividly fixed in her head, and that was of the lab employee, Noonsa, gutted and lying in pool of entrails and blood on the otherwise antiseptically clean floor. Any blood that may have splashed onto her clothes was long washed away, but what other evidence had they left behind to incriminate them? Loose hairs or cloth fibers? Fingerprints? Breaking and entry into a restricted area was bad enough, but Xel had murdered a man in cold blood, not that Lina was particularly bothered by that. It was in defense of her, but how would all that work in a court of law? Lina narrowed her eyes at the back of Xel's head. "You had better have the right stuff in that bag of yours, or you are in big trouble, and that's just with me." He couldn't hear her, of course.

She could feel the plane climbing gradually and the ride smooth out. Muffled drumming of heavy rain on the windows and persistent thrumming of the engine lulled Lina into a light sleep.

Gourry's face filled her mind. "I don't want to go to jail!" Lina heard herself wail. She felt terror clouding her mind and driving away her logic.

"You don't have to, Lina. I'll tell them you were with me all along, then it's just her word against ours." His voice was low and reassuring.

"But what about Xel? They'll lock him up!"

"Don't worry, 'bout him. He was her employee. He could be there and that other guy attacked you and fell on his knife. Xel won't go to jail. But you could."

"Gourry, I can't...I can't!" Fear gripped her chest and constricting her lungs so that she could hardly catch her breath to speak.

"I'll protect you, Lina, like I promised. Me and you went to a movie and had a picnic, right? Gourry kissed her lightly on the lips, sealing the deal.

"I don't know." Lina leaned into his side, enjoying the strong arm that wrapped around her shoulders and the feeling of safety and security it gave her.

Gourry squeezed her shoulder. "So, ah...come with me, and I'll make a statement."

"Lina...Lina?"

The next thing she knew, Xel was gently shaking her shoulder. His face pale and bruised against his dark hair hanging limp and in disarray. "Lina? We're about to land. I didn't want you to wake up thinking we were about to crash when the plane rattles. I just got clearance from the Atlas City terminal."

Lina blinked. "Where? I thought we were heading back to Seyruun." She had slept just long enough to be disoriented, and the return to reality was abrupt.

"I'll explain later. Trust me; this will throw anyone following us off our trail."

"Oh," Lina said warily, and then shook her head to clear it. "You keep telling me to trust you. We made it through the storm all right, so I guess I have no choice."

"Yes, we did. Xelloss is a brilliant, if not fool-hardy, pilot," Sherra put in. "There's our landing strip with the lights."

"It'll be just a few more minutes," Xel whispered.

He brought the plane to a smooth roll, then taxied back and over toward a low, angular hanger. "We're getting off here, Lina, and then Sherra will fly the plane back to Seyruun and stay there for the night. In the morning, she will return to Wolfpack Island. If anyone is looking for us, they'll look in Seyruun first. Excuse me just a minute."

"If you say so," Lina said.

Xel turned around and spoke to Sherra, then opened the door and hopped out onto the tarmac. Sherra closed up Xel's bag and reached for Lina's. "Go on, I'll toss your bags down to you." As Lina stepped to the door, the other woman added, "Take care of him, Lina Inverse."

"Worry about yourself. Zelas won't be thrilled knowing you helped him."

"She won't know. I sent out another plane before we even took off. It looks like I chased you through the storm, but lost you someplace in Seyruun. As you can see, Xelloss thought of everything. I'm not worried at all about myself. Goodbye, Lina."

"Yeah, well, that's great. So, ah... bye, and thanks." Lina smiled and jumped out, landing on her bag.

"Ready for our next adventure?" Xel asked her as he collected their bags.

"Yeah, sure," Lina said. She grinned and shook her head. "What a night, right? So, who do you know in Atlas City these days?"

"We'll call Valgaav's brothers, and see if they can pick us up, then we'll go look up Zelgadiss and Valgaav. I want to discuss what we discovered."

"Okay. So, what did we discover, Xel?"

"The Fountain of Youth." He smiled, barely. To their backs, Sherra was aligning the jet for takeoff; in front of them were many possibilities.

* * *

The phone was ringing as Jillas and Gravos entered the house. "Yo!" Jillas yelled into the receiver. 

"Jillas? Xel here. Has that serious brother of yours and a newly-discovered cousin been by this evening?" Xel looked at his watch and realized he could just as well added 'or this morning?'"

"Hell, yeah. Been and gone. They're at the Cavern now."

"And you're not?" Xel asked.

"Got thrown out. Can you believe it? Me? Me and Gravity-man both."

"Tell you what, Jillas. You come pick me up and I'll get you into the Cavern."

"Pay the cover charge, too?"

"Sure."

"All right, then. Gravos!" he shouted without covering the mouth-piece of the phone. "Hot-wire V-bo's car. We're goin' to the Cavern." He returned to his conversation with Xel. "So, where are you?"

"Airport. We'll meet you at the taxi stand in front of the main terminal."

"We? Oh, you got some chick with you, eh?"

"I have someone, and we really can't wait here long."

"Thirty minutes," Jillas told him.

"Sooner."

"I gotta change my clothes. Okay, twenty."

"Bye, then."

"Yeah." Jillas hung up and raced to his room.

Xel turned to Lina. "We have twenty minutes to get to the main terminal and clean up as best we can." He leaned close and rubbed a strand of her hair in his fingers. "Blood."

"Well, it's a good thing my hair's red then, isn't it?"

"We were very fortunate tonight."

"Noonsa wasn't," she reminded him, then set off in the direction of the terminal building.

* * *

"Do you like that band?" Valgaav asked. Zelgadiss seemed drawn to music, but so far, Valgaav hadn't been able to talk him onto the dance floor. 

"Oh, yes. They're great. I wish it wasn't so loud, though. Having this super hearing is a nuisance, but otherwise tonight, I'm having the time of my life. Thanks, Valgaav, for putting up with me."

"No prob, dude. My pleasure. I think that if we move to one of the other rooms, one of them is liable to have the sound system turned lower so it won't hurt your ears."

"Really? Let's try that, then."

"So..."

Zelgadiss looked up at his friend. "So?"

"Wanna dance?"

Zelgadiss' voice caught in his throat. "Um..."

"I'll get us some girls. Come on. Oh, and did I tell you that it's 'Trans Nite'?"

Zelgadiss was just getting over the first shock. He was going to dance with a stranger. "Ah, no. What's 'Trans Nite'?"

But Valgaav only laughed and loped on ahead, Zelgadiss struggling to keep up.

**End Graveyard Shift Chapter 16.**


	17. Showtime

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 17 -**Showtime-

Did you know that:

The tiny poison arrow frog has enough poison to kill over 2200 people?

* * *

Zelgadiss danced enough to work up a thirst. His dance partner had disappeared into the murky depths, so he took it upon himself to order up a drink for himself. His eyes roved over the tables where kids were sipping drinks and munching on assorted treats, looking for ideas. He couldn't help it; he was seduced by the colorful drinks.

"May I help you?" asked the young waitress.

"Ah... sure. I'd like one of those." Zelgadiss pointed to a tall glass of poisonous blue.

"A Blue Lagoon? Sweet. Would you like this delivered to a table?"

Zelgadiss was stumped a moment, then noticed an empty one not far away. "That one, please."

"Okay! I'll be right back with that drink, sir."

Zelgadiss slipped into the stone-look booth flooded with pleasure at his first independent move on the adult club scene. He didn't wait long before the waitress returned with his order. "Here ya go, and I brought you an order of nachos and 'skins'."

Zelgadiss paid for the drink and accepted the house munchies with some degree of apprehension. He waited until he was alone to examine a 'skin'. He was relieved to find an absence of pores and hair; it was a fried potato peel, very good and very salty. The drink was cold, sweet, alcoholic, and gone in three long swallows. One drink couldn't quench his thirst, so he ordered another, and another. Somewhere in between, he consumed a basket of pretzel sticks and bowl of salted peanuts, and then the third drink hit him.

"What's that? Valgaav jabbed a finger at the just-emptied glass at Zelgadiss' elbow. He fell heavily into the seat opposite.

"Blue La-goon," Zelgadiss muttered. "No, that was the first one. This was... Orange...orange..."

Valgaav sniffed the glass, "Orange rum, orange Curacao, pineapple juice, orange juice, which might make it an Orange-utan. That's my guess. You're going to be sick."

"I already am."

Valgaav directed him to the men's room and told him he'd check in on him later. "Novices."

After emptying his stomach the hard way, Zelgadiss started feeling better. He washed his face and hands. As he reached for a towel, a scribble of wall graffiti caught his eye. On first glance what he saw read like a personal, but an incomplete one. The ones below that were equally odd:

Harass selfless Sarah!

Did Dean aid Diana? Ed did.

Eva, can I stab bats in a cave?

Zelgadiss felt for poor Sarah, wondered whatever became of needy Diana, and hoped Eva had told her friend 'no.' Next, his eyes lit on what had to be some bad menu ideas which, when set to music, would make a disturbing song:

Was it a rat I saw?

Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo.

Taco cat.

tug a gut

tuna nut

Tie it.

A nut nosed itself; it stifles tides on tuna.

Elk cackle.

Bird rib.

At sap time, remit pasta.

Doc, note I dissent: a fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.

He was staring at the literary wall, when his cousin walked in, and asked, "How's it going?"

"Better. What are these?" Zelgadiss asked.

"Palindromes. You know, the line reads the same way backwards and forwards." Valgaav reached over Zelgadiss' shoulder and pointed out a triplet. "I put these up."

Lepers repel.

Devil never even lived!

Too bad I hid a boot.

"Really? That is so cool. I've read all kinds of things in men's rooms, but nothing like this."

"Well, what you have here is a belletristic college crowd. Look over here. Guess who wrote these?"

Zelgadiss read through them twice:

Top spot.

Drawn inward.

'Til lips spill it.

Sex often; I met foxes.

Dew on roses or no, wed.

"Xel, right?" he guessed.

"Yeah, with his one-track mind. So, you want to dance or something?"

"Or go home. Just a minute, I got one!" Zelgadiss found the felt marker everyone else apparently used resting on a ledge above the towel dispenser and wrote:

I prefer pi.

I'm aloof: a fool am I.

"Cool," Valgaav said appreciatively. "Those are really pretty clever, considering."

Zelgadiss smiled. "Yeah, considering. You know, I think I'm coming here in fall– the school, I mean."

"You think so?"

"I've decided. I'm going to college this fall."

Valgaav met his eyes, "Okay, so am I, then. Forensic anthropology."

"Forensic chemistry for me." Zelgadiss said with certainty.

They shook on it and walked out of the men's room.

* * *

Xel wrapped an arm around Lina and pulled her nearly into his lap in the back seat of the car. Jillas and Gravos were up front discussing how they were going to show everyone that they 'can't be denied!' when they showed up at the Cavern. "How're you doing?" he asked.

"Tired, or I will be when the adrenalin wears off. You're going to be sore." She caught him with his eyes open and said in a low voice, "You did some amazing stunts tonight. I was impressed, and I can tell you, I'm not easy to impress."

He hugged her firmly and rubbed her arm. "Gods, I wish I could kiss you right now."

Lina pretended to not hear. "Your face isn't so bad. I think the cold and wet kept the swelling down. The lip is...pretty nasty-looking, for sure."

"I'm sorry," Xel said meaningfully. "It wasn't at all what I had in mind for our first date."

"Date? That wasn't a date at all."

"I know, but I'd like to take you out, Lina, on a real one. Any place you'd like. Sky's the limit."

Lina liked the flying. "Teach me to fly. You can do that, can't you Doctor Flyboy? You gotta license to do that, right? I wanna fly."

Xelloss smiled, as best he could. "Learning to fly will take many lessons, and time."

"I'll squeeze it in somehow," she said with a yawn.

"Okay," he murmured into the top of her head. "Me, too." He closed his eyes and gently stroked her hair. He was tempted to touch more, but curbed his baser appetites in a moment of wisdom. He had to be satisfied with long, lustful glances from the curve of her hip to her thigh, following the edge of her skirt from leg to leg, and then continuing down her shapely legs to her toes and back up. Look, but don't touch, he reminded himself.

Lina dozed off a few minutes and awoke to the sounds of traffic. "How much farther to this club place?"

Jillas checked her out in the rear-view mirror. "I'm looking for a parking spot. Nice legs. Gravity-butt, you notice the hot redhead in back?"

Lina tugged at her short skirt and shimmied away from the warm nest she had made in Xel's arms. Although it was summer, the high altitude Atlas City cooled dramatically at night, and it was two AM. She shivered and was angry at the crude remark which had made her self-conscious. "Keep your eyes to yerself!"

A few minutes later, they were pushing through the waiting throng outside the Cavern club. "Gabriel!" Xelloss shouted.

"Ohmygods, Xelly! Where have you been hiding yourself? Vally's here, and he brought the most precious creature you've ever seen. You can put on a show, can't you? The quality of acts has really sunk lately. I think our popularity will start dropping off..."

Xel waved him to silence. "Yeah, I can tell from the crowd wrapping around the corner that we're really suffering for customers." He nudged Jillas and Gravos through the door and gently guided Lina past the watchful, savvy eyes of the door men. "Don't worry, I'll watch those two. And this is Lina Inverse."

"Charmed," Gabriel murmured and bowed to her. "She's adorable, Xelly."

"I think so," Xel agreed.

"Ohdeargods! Your face! Oh...! Spauld, I've got to take a break and fix this man up. You'll be okay? Shall I send out Prill or Eddy to help?"

Spauld, a man of few words, shook his head and moved to fill the doorway with his massive form.

"I can touch up some of that... I have the perfect little quarter mask... Oh, now there's Vally and his toy! I'll tell the band. This will be wonderful! It is 'Trans nite,' of course."

"Zelgadiss?"

"Lina?"

Both friends were startled to see one another: Zelgadiss, because he hadn't expected to see Lina at all, especially not accompanied by Xel, and Lina, because of Zelgadiss' makeup and attire.

"Zelgadiss, will you show Lina to a table in the band room? Lina, I'll be a few minutes, then I have a little show to put on, okay?" Xel asked her.

"Whatever. I could use a bite to eat if I'm going to be up."

"Order anything you like. Tell the waitress you are with Xelloss. And could you hold on to my bag?" He leaned in and whispered into her ear, "Keep it safe, please."

Lina hooked the strap over her shoulder and gave him a 'thumbs up' sign.

Xelloss continued, "Jillas, Gravos, **stay** with them." He was ordering the two other men like servants, and stranger still, they obeyed without question. "I'll see you in a few minutes, Lina," Xel said finally, then took a turn down a different hallway with Valgaav and Gabriel at his heels.

Valgaav unbuckled his chest harness and unzipped his kilt. "What style?"

Xel shook his head. "I don't care." He settled into the chair in front of the brightly lit mirror and closed his eyes, fighting pain and fatigue. "Before you start, would you get me some water, Gabriel?"

"Aitch-two-oh, coming up. You want a little wine with that, or something stronger?"

"No alcohol with acetaminophen," Xel called after him.

"Here you go. Pure water. The only thing pure in this place." Gabriel began dotting foundation over Xel's face, smoothing it as best he could to disguise the bruising. "I won't ask how you got this."

"You're right. You won't," Xel warned. He spilled out a couple pills and washed them down, drinking all of the water.

"This slutty school girl costume has a broken strap, so those are out," Valgaav announced as he pulled two costumes off hangers.

"Oh, damn," Xel muttered.

"Where have you been tonight, Xelly?" Gabriel asked as he sniffed his hair. "This smells like...bad, real bad."

"French maid with lacy aprons and head band? No? Tuxedos, right. I like the cheap, faux-diamond cufflinks."

"Oh, it's the snappy bow-tie part that I get off on," Xel joked, then to Gabriel added, "I rinsed it as best I could in the sewer, naturally."

"Orange it is!" Valgaav showed off the pairs of matching ties and shoes. "Good condition, still. Next, fishnets or back seam?" He held up several pairs of stockings to show Xel.

"Nothing having to do with fish, please!" Xel said sharply. Gabriel kneaded his neck and shoulders, and he relaxed, and then suggested more calmly, "How about those black ones with the roses. That's tacky enough. Ouch! Careful!"

"Sorry, Xelly. Sure you don't want to try the mask?" Gabriel asked. "These bruises are hard to cover."

"I'm sure. Grease up the lip well. That's going to be the problem. I don't want it to crack open and bleed when I'm singing. That's fine, Gabriel. No, no more makeup or I'll look like a whore."

"Isn't that the idea?" Valgaav chuckled as he let Gabriel latch the back hooks on the elaborate woman's boned corset with minor alterations to fit a man. "Two transvestite whores are we."

"_Entertainers_, Vally. Never forget your place in society," Gabriel reminded him with a slap to his butt. "Orange g-strings, where did those come from?"

"Personal effects. The locked box. You think I'd let anyone else touch our underwear?" Valgaav said. He soothed the stocking over his rough knees, up his thighs, and secured them with the corset's garters.

Gabriel smiled and shook his head. "Putting on some weight are we?" he asked Xel as he hooked his costume up the back.

"Hopefully. Our new roommate, Zelgadiss..."

"Blue guy, you met him," Valgaav elaborated.

"Gods, yes that _incredible_ creature..." Gabriel gushed. "He lives with you, too?"

"**And cousin**," Xel said a tad louder. "He is a great cook and keeps us eating two meals daily. And forget him, Gabby. He, too, is thoroughly hetero."

"Okay, if you say so, you should know. Too bad." Gabriel stood back to examine the two men. "I've got the perfect black velvet rose for each of you." He clipped a flower in1 Valgaav's hair and then Xel's. "There, lovely. Okay, I'll go let the band know you're coming out. What song should I say?"

Valgaav and Xel exchanged 'I don't care' looks, and then Xel said, "Killer Queen."

"Perfect!" Gabriel chortled, and then skipped out.

When they were alone, Valgaav clamped a hand on Xel's shoulder and looked his cousin in the eye. "Something happened. Something worse than getting your face mashed in."

"I murdered a man tonight, Val, and right now I'd like to forget that."

Valgaav blinked, and then leaned over to readjust the strap on his shoe. For the moment, he would keep his thoughts to himself. "I hate goddamned heels."

"You always say that."

"That's _because_ I always hate them."

"I like them," Xel said with a tentative smile at the corners of his sore mouth.

"That's only because they make you taller."

"They do? I thought they just gave my calves more definition. Well, I like them even better now."

The two costumed men parted, each to enter the stage from a different direction.

* * *

Lina narrowed her yes in the dim light and examined Zelgadiss' face. "You wearing eyeliner?"

"Just for tonight. So, where have you been? I thought you and Gourry were going out," Zelgadiss said.

"I went to Wolfpack Island with Xel. Now don't have a fit! It was a good thing I was along. He was gathering evidence for creepy stuff going on there in some secret lab that links all these murders with his mom, I think. Something like that. We saw these bodies, alive possibly, but like preserved fruit in these long tube things, then things got tight and we escaped, barely. We gotta talk about this all later."

Zelgadiss decided that Lina was pulling his leg and had no intention of reacting further to encourage her. "Yeah, whatever."

Lina's temper flared. "What do you mean by that snotty remark? You been drinking?"

Zelgadiss was saved from further abuse when the music changed abruptly. The lights dimmed, and then two spots found their subjects in the wings and followed them out onto the stage.

Gabriel darted onto center stage, grinning from ear-to-ear and waving a note card. "Kids and all you important, beautiful people out there... We have a very special treat for you tonight. For the first time all summer, well, first we have a man who needs no introduction. What he needs is a conclusion! However, he insists upon it. So let's give it up for Vally Rubyeye! And, yes, there's more! He has made anonymity a household name. He is clever and witty, and I could go on and on, except I'm having a problem deciphering his handwriting... Our club's owner, Xelly Metallium! Take it away, boys!"

Valgaav strutted out onto the stage from the left. Xelloss combined swagger and sashay as he entered from the right. The moment the crowd recognized the pair there was a roar of excitement, wolf-whistles, and cat-calls. They posed dramatically beneath hanging microphones, and then came a familiar instrumental introduction. Xel's strong tenor voice soared above the heavy metal band for a classy rendition of Queen's 'Killer Queen' hit:

"_She keeps Moet et Chandon in her pretty cabinet_

_'Let them eat cake' she says just like Marie Antoinette_

_A built-in remedy for Kruschev and Kennedy_

_At anytime an invitation you can't decline_..."

Valgaav added a tight low harmony with:

"_Caviar and cigarettes_

_Well versed in etiquette_

_Extraordinarily nice..."_

But the entire room joined them for the chorus

"_She's a Killer Queen!_

_Gunpowder, gelatine_

_Dynamite with a laser beam_

_Guaranteed to blow your mind_

_Anytime!"_

Lina and Zelgadiss gawked at their two friends. Their ability to combine two words into sensible thought, articulate, or even blink intelligently was wiped out completely.

The song was over and Xel had a hand-held microphone in his hand. "Hey, thanks, everyone. It is good to be back. And, ah... thanks, Gabriel, for that wonderful introduction. I wish I could figure out who you have me confused with."

The audience rumbled with laughter. Clearly, this was an unexpected, but thoroughly appreciated show coming up for them, and they wanted to encourage the two men as much as possible. Lina narrowed her eyes as she said to Zelgadiss, "The voice is right, so my brain tells me; that _is_ Xel up there on the stage, but my eyes won't function to make him look right. That just can't be him in that costume! And Valgaav! Gods, how I wish I had a camera right now, or, alternatively, something sharp to poke out my eyes!"

Zelgadiss instantly scanned the area for any such sharp object and was relieved not to find any. "I'll just take another Orang-utan, or whatever, no... something not orange. What's opposite on the color wheel?"

Lina frowned. "What are you babbling about?"

"Let's see. Oh, yeah, I have some good friends here tonight I'd like to point out."

At the mention of 'friends,' Zelgadiss felt his heartbeat stop. "Gods, no..."

"There's my long-lost cousin, Zelgadiss, who is as honest as the day is long," Xel continued. "Sadly, he works the graveyard shift."

Heads turned and eyes shifted to the table front and center of the stage where Zelgadiss was hiding behind his fringe of wiry hair, Lina was staring blankly, dazzled by the lights and strangeness, and Jillas and Gravos were grinning and waving to all who cared.

"There's Gravos, behind him, who is a man who is ahead of his time, but let's not make a big deal over three or four minutes.

"And by his side is a man who is world famous in certain parts of the valley, Jillas.

"Any questions about the material so far? You'll be tested later in the evening." As the laugher died down Xel added, "Because, also seated at the table is the most amazing woman I have ever met. Strong and beautiful, the incomparable, Lina Inverse."

Lina was better prepared than Zelgadiss. She smiled wanly and fingered the torn edges of her napkin beneath an empty peanut bowl on the table top, wishing her hair didn't smell like the inside of a drainage pipe. She didn't meet his eyes. She blushed to see him up close with more skin showing than she wanted to see, and wearing more makeup than she ever had-- in total-- in her entire life.

"It's a fine night to have an evening, don't you think?" Xel asked Valgaav. They had maneuvered two high stools center stage, and Xel was now perched on top of one.

Valgaav shook his head as he hefted one foot up on a high rung of the empty stool, examined his friend from head to foot, and then asked, "Are you all right?"

"I'm not sure. I've had amnesia once or twice, I forget which. But right now I think I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time."

Valgaav laughed. This was an act he and Xel had put on many times in the past few years. The joke sequences varied in order, some were ditched, and often spontaneously generated quips took their place. He recognized where Xel was going with this line of jokes, and fell into the next line with ease. "Yeah, right. Is it time for your medication or _mine_?"

"As your doctor, I think you've had enough. Any more and you might have to go into rehab."

Jillas shouted out, "Rehab is for quitters!" He was getting laughs, too.

Valgaav continued the patter. "I had a friend who went into rehab. He'd gotten pretty bad."

"Oh, really? So, how bad was he?" Xel asked, playing the straight man for a change.

"Well, he tried sniffing coke one night and got ice cubes stuck in his nose." Valgaav waited for the audience to quiet down, and then said, "My only problem is sleeping. I think I have insomnia." He stretched and preened, showing off his rock-climbing-honed physique, which contrasted dramatically with the feminine attire.

Convinced that his only problem was with sleeping, made for a clever moment of farce. Zelgadiss chuckled into his hand. "Obviously, any guy wearing that get-up by choice on a stage with another guy dressed in matching clothes has some major problems."

Lina managed a shrug. This whole gig was beyond her scope of appreciation. Sure, she got the jokes, half of which she'd heard before, but it was allure of two guys-dressed-in-women's-underwear that eluded her. The audience, for the most part, was enthralled.

"Well," Xel smiled smugly and folded his arms over his orange tuxedo corset. "Any doctor worth his keep will tell you that the best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep."

Valgaav nodded and smiled slightly. "I guess doctors are important, especially for lawyers. One doctor, like you, can support several lawyers– fighting malpractice suits alone!"

Xel stepped forward and addressed the crowd, pointing at them for attention. "So, support a lawyer. Become a doctor." He laughed with them a bit, and then went on. "Yeah, I may be a doctor, but the girls still think I'm a fun-loving guy."

Valgaav rolled his eyes. "Oh sure, by which you mean it's fun as long as the relationship involves nudity."

"Not so at all!" Xel retorted in mock anger as if Valgaav had insulted him. "I can keep my pants on just as well as the next guy. I have a lot of respect for women."

Zelgadiss, who was paying attention to the act, groaned, "Give me a break."

Lina jabbed him in the ribs. "Zelly, shut up and catch that waitress. I could use more pretzels." She was irritated that she couldn't go out and dance and enjoy herself, but her body was exhausted. She was weak and her nerves were raw, and she had no one else to take it out on than her friend. "I wish we could go now," she muttered to herself.

Valgaav grinned fiercely. The audience laughed as Valgaav's eyes rested on Xel's clearly pant-free legs. "That so? Wasn't it you who wrote that message on the men's room wall: Wanted: meaningful overnight relationship?"

Xel frowned. "Hey, that was the public message board, not the men's room!"

Valgaav pointed at Xel, and mouthed, "Caught you!"

Xel smiled, but it was an evil one, and the audience was roaring with laughter at the two friends, even if they had seen the act a hundred times before. "As I always say: Forgive and remember..."

Valgaav raised an eyebrow and looked with curiosity down on his shorter friend. "I thought you always said: The world's full of apathy?"

"Well, sure, but I don't care." Xel flung his arms open with a chuckle. "I mean, everyone expects me to be perfect all the time. Only a mediocre person is _always _at his best."

"You can't seem to hold on to a single philosophy for long, Xel."

"That's for sure," Lina said loud enough for Xel to have heard.

It flustered him for a moment, and he nearly lost his momentum. "Er...ah...You think _that's _my problem? I mean, on one hand, I'm indecisive, but on the other I'm not."

"Actually, on the other hand is a whole different set of fingers." Valgaav waited out the laughter before starting the next joke sequence. "So, did I tell you I met this girl the other day?"

"No, you did not, Valgaav. Did you ask her out?"

"Naw, I was thinking about it, but after talking to her awhile I could tell that she was just looking for someone to buy her stuff, take care of her, you know. She was very transparent."

"Speaking of transparent," Zel murmured behind a hand as he leaned into Lina. "He's been hurt. His face isn't right. What happened?"

Lina wasn't paying attention, however. She had tripped up a waiter and was trying to get an order of soda and peanuts out of him.

Xel turned slowly to the audience, stared directly at Lina, and remarked, "Anyone who says they can see through women is missing a lot."

The crowd responded with a mixture of groans and chuckles. They were eating this all up. Some of the kids had enough to drink to laugh at anything, and others were really fans of the two men. Lina had managed to catch Xel's eyes, grace him with a smile, and toast him with her hard-won drink. "Well, at least we know they're just making this stuff up and not telling real stories about their friends, or us," Lina said to Zelgadiss.

"School time!" Xel announced cheerfully, and the audience groaned.

Valgaav nodded and asked, "Ready for your grammar lessons?"

More moans greeted that news.

"Oh, now it's not so bad." Xel waggled his finger at the crowd. "Remember: '**syn**tax' is the only tax that doesn't cost money." He paused to let the laughter die down and then said to Valgaav, "You start, then."

"Okay, first, never use 'real' when you mean 'very.' You can see how the sentence, 'she is real stupid' shows _you_ are very stupid."

Xel added, "That's right! That point was _real _important." Xelloss waggled his index finger at the audience, chuckling with them.

Valgaav agreed. "Sure was, Xel. Also, be sure to never split an infinitive."

"Or split the bill... Ah, so most people have problems with 'who' and 'whom.' For example," Xel moved into his upper octave to assume a girlish voice, 'Whom are you?'"

Valgaav completed the joke with, "... she asked with an air of correctness, for she had gone to grad school."

"That's right, Valgaav. Such information can be valuable! How about the mentioning the difference between 'don't' and 'doesn't' ?"

"Sure, Xel, I will. I mean, it's _shocking_ to hear so many graduates say 'he don't care,' don't you agree? What they mean, of course, is 'I don't care.'"

"... and their grades prove it!" Xel laughed as he said it.

Valgaav continued, "Don't' use 'neither' when you mean 'either'. Either user neither correctly or don't use it at all."

Xel nodded. "And as a doctor I should warn you not to use 'either' if you mean 'ether' neither."

"Right again, Xel. So, what else have we got? Oh, yeah. Don't never use no double negatives."

"And triple negatives are even worse!" Xel said with a chuckle. "Not to mention the dreaded 'them-those' trap, right Valgaav?"

"That's right, Xel. For instance, don't write: 'them apples are rotten' if they are not. Which brings us to the last lesson: the crucial difference between 'lie' and 'lay.' If it helps you, remember it this way: the former takes no object..."

"As in: 'I lie in bed,'" Xel put in.

"But the latter must have one."

"As in: 'Lay that pistol down, mother!'" Xelloss shouted in mock horror.

"To lie means to express something not true," Valgaav said.

"While 'to lay' expresses something more urgent," Xel put in, and then exploded into giggles.

"That's true. So tell me, Xel, why is it that men get laid, but women get screwed?"

"I think it's partly because women need a reason to have sex, while men just need a place."

"I agree. Men have it easier in a way, but, still, when a man goes on a date he wonders if he is going to get lucky, whereas, a woman _already knows_."

"Oh, brother, this place is filled with idiots. I can tell you what I already know," Lina said.

"What was that?" Zelgadiss asked her, although he knew perfectly well what she meant.

"If there's anyone with luck, it's me, so if that's what he's counting on then he's in for a rude awakening."

Zelgadiss smiled, thinking Lina could possibly be able to keep Xel in his place.

Valgaav interrupted the hoots and hollers of the audience, and Zelgadiss and Lina's muted conversation to say, "Which reminds me of another note I read in the men's room..."

"You do a lot of reading in that place, don't you?" Xel said with a wry smile.

Valgaav appeared exasperated. "At _times_. Do you want to hear it or not?"

"Tell on!"

"It went: Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion."

"Oh, that _is_ good, Valgaav!" Xel laughed with the audience, and then changed topics. "Well, I saw something, but it wasn't written on a wall, is that okay?"

"What did you see?"

"It was on a t-shirt worn in Seyruun. It said: Finally 21 and legally able to do everything I've been doing in Atlas City since I was 15."

"Good one. Yeah, there's no place like Atlas City." Valgaav clapped with the crowd who was cheering its approval. They all loved their town with its lax rules. "Still, I'm glad we moved for the summer."

"Yeah, so am I. Better house, nicer roommate..." Xel nodded and smiled down at Zelgadiss.

Zelgadiss shrank lower into his seat. "Please leave me out of this."

Xel ignored him, or relished at making him squirm a little. "Yeah. Zelgadiss is great and he cooks great, too. Remember the crazy guys we lived with here in Atlas city last year?"

"Yeah, the one art student who designed synthetic hair balls for ceramic cats," Xel said.

"Oh, and that other nutcase who tried to rob a department store, with a pricing gun? He was screaming and waving that thing in the air: 'Give me all of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store!'" Valgaav had acted the scene out, waving a shoe instead. The crowd was roaring and clapping so loudly that Zelgadiss had to cover his ears with his hands.

"Yeah, he was nuts for sure. You know, I actually got a postcard from that guy the other day," Xel told him.

"Did I see it?"

"I don't know, did you?"

"Did it have a picture of our planet on the front?" Valgaav asked.

"That's the one. On the back side he wrote: 'Wish you were here.'"

"Well, I wish I wasn't," Lina muttered to Zelgadiss. "I'd rather be home in bed, asleep, and that's saying a lot because you know how I like to party and do stuff."

"It can't be much longer," Zelgadiss said without much conviction. His cousins were on a roll and at this rate they might continue for another hour. "They'll be in great shape for bowling tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow. Next day. This is now... Oh, crap, it's about 2:30 AM? The tournament's tomorrow!"

"Not to mention_ we_ have play practice tonight."

"So you can sleep late."

"Sleep sounds good," Zelgadiss said as he tried to pay attention to the show.

Valgaav shook his head, smiling at what Xel had said. 1"And he thought _we_ were the crazy ones."

"How could he have thought that? It was nothing I gave away, I can assure you. My conscience is clear," Xel said, rubbing his palms together in a manner suggesting he was 'wiping his hands' of the matter.

Valgaav reminded him, "A clear conscience is a clear sign of a bad memory."

Xel sighed, then said, "Consciousness...that annoying time between naps."

"Sometimes I think you are nuts." Valgaav shook his head as if he was terribly over-burdened with this crazy man. "You need a big sign for you desk that says: Out of my mind. Back in five minutes."

"Ah, come on, Vally," Xel paused for effect, letting the nickname sink in. "I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy _every_ minute of it!"

"Okay, Xel. Have it your way. It IS as bad as you think and they ARE out to get you."

Xel folded his arms, stuck up his nose, and said in a tone that implied he was miffed, "You're just jealous because the voices only talk to ME."

"Oh, they do, huh?" Val smiled. "And I'll bet you believe in ESP and people with special powers, too?"

"I am not alone," Xel assured him. "All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise **my** hand." He made a point of counting a few, then turned it into a wave and moved on. "Besides, Valgaav, didn't you date a woman who you said could read your mind?"

"I _almost_ had a psychic girlfriend, but she left me before we met."

"Yeah..." Xel chuckled a moment. "You know what really gets me?"

"No, what, Xel?"

"Dumb people."

"Yeah, my brother Gravos– yeah, you in the front! He took an IQ test and the results were negative."

Jillas yelled back from his seat beside the oblivious Gravos, "He's not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!"

The folks seated near him, and who had heard, all laughed.

"Oh yeah, some dumb people are alive only because it is illegal to kill them," Xel said seriously. "Perhaps the gene pool could use a little chlorine?" His solemn look returned to humorous, and then he said glibly, "I just made that up."

"I'll bet," Lina mumbled. She looked at her watch, sighed, and then asked Zelgadiss, "How much longer do you think they're going to be on?"

"Something about you scares me at times," Valgaav said, looking positively frightening himself in his get-up and towering figure.

"Me, too," Zel agreed with Valgaav, then to Lina answered, "All night, it seems. Can you believe how this crowd likes them?"

"Well," Xel pretended to be quite affected by what Valgaav had said. "Life was bad for me growing up."

"You don't know bad," Valgaav said. "I had two older brothers who were always messing with my mind or beating me up."

"Well...I did, too..." Xel drawled in a sly way. "When I was little, I had this sandbox. It was a _quick_sand box. I was an only child, _eventually_." He had to wait a moment until the crowd 'got' that joke before proceeding on to the next. "I wasn't as smart as I was smart-mouthed as a kid. If I'd known the difference between 'anecdote' and 'antidote,' then...maybe things would have different with the little sister."

"Do you think that really happened?" Zel whispered to Lina. "Him losing his brothers and sisters?"

Lina yawned broadly. "It's possible. His mother could have served them for dinner."

Valgaav noticed both Lina and Zelgadiss drooping over the table. "Hey, would you look at the time?" Valgaav said pointing up at some imaginary clock. "It's time for our parting shots." Maybe Xel was getting too close to reality, maybe it was time for the band to go back on, but Valgaav felt it was definitely time to call it a night.

Xel took his cue to wind things up. "Yes. Our final words of wisdom before our show is over. Would you like to go first, or should I, cousin?"

"I'll go. I thought of a good one for all us science nerds: If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the precipitate."

"Oooh, I like that. I do!" Xel laughed. "Okay, for meeee: Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire." His eyes landed on Lina, and he smiled.

The two men shook hands and bowed to one another, then to the audience amid loud applause. A quick wave and they were done. They hopped off the stage and joined their friends and fans. Valgaav and Xel accepted their congratulations, while Zelgadiss and Lina waited.

The band returned to playing its own music, and Lina was moving in time, dancing in place. Zelgadiss noticed Xel watching her, his eyes open wider than usual, his arms tense at his sides. There was a hungry look in his violet eyes, as if he would devour Lina, if he could, at least that was how Zelgadiss interpreted his older cousin's expression. Zelgadiss suddenly felt protective of Lina. Gourry wasn't there to save her, so on an impulse, Zelgadiss moved to Lina's side, blocking Xel's view of her. "Wanna dance?" he asked her.

"What?" Lina was surprised; Zelgadiss had never danced with her before. "Oh, dance, sure, just one, okay." What she really wanted to do was talk to Xel and the others about what had happened on Wolfpack Island.

"Pretty weird, huh?" Zelgadiss asked her. It was too hard to be heard over the music, so he didn't even try asking her what she thought of the 'act' his two cousins had put on. A quick glance over his shoulder, however, confirmed that Xel had noticed his move to part Lina from him.

Xel's eyes flashed briefly in annoyance, but it was only momentary. In the next second, Xel was once again wearing his benign smile. "I'm going to change clothes, now. I'll see you all in a few minutes, and then we should go."

"Hold on! I'm right behind you," Valgaav called out, and then the two disappeared backstage.

"I expected Lina to say something," Xel grumbled quietly under his breath. "Something like: 'Say, that was pretty funny, Xel. How did you get into the act?' But, no, she ignored me and then goes off with Zelgadiss. I don't have her figured out."

Valgaav grabbed hold of his arm and drew him closer. "She's young, Xel. Don't forget that. Maybe we shocked her, I don't know. I know I feel ten years older than Zelgadiss, and we're only a year or two apart, whereas you really _are_ ten years older than Lina. Bet she's never been in a club, or seen you murder someone."

Xel ripped off his corset and reached for his underwear and pants. "I was saving her life."

"I'm sure she knows that or she'd be hysterically demanding to be taken home. I don't know what was going down with you two, but I think she's doing all right. Damn! Where did _that_ run come from? Cheap stockings! That jaw of yours hurt much?"

"Yes. We'll camp out with you guys at Jillas'. I have some pain killers to knock me out, so ten minutes after we there I'll be down for the count. I just wanted...well, it doesn't matter. Let's go. Just leave the clothes out and let Gabriel have them cleaned."

* * *

Xel sent Jillas and Gravos home in their car ahead of the rest of them with instructions to locate and set out pillows and blankets in the front room. Zelgadiss and Valgaav had arranged to sleep on futon folding chairs in the study, ones that Jillas' 'son' used when he visited. Xel and Lina slid into the back seat of Valgaav's car and collapsed. Lina dumped his shoulder bag onto his lap, and then used it for a pillow.

"So, who's gonna start?" Valgaav asked as he started the engine.

"Start with why you have a fat lip," Zelgadiss demanded. "And why you had to drag Lina into some mess."

That resulted in Lina's defensive yelling and Xel's silent smile. "Me first!" Lina insisted and got her way. "I wanna know why you guys dress up like that and do stupid vaudeville acts?"

"Oh, well." Xel's smile wavered. "That's kind of a secret."

"NOT FROM ME!" Lina bellowed, which was unnecessary because they were within the confines of the car. She managed to lock his head in a vise-like grip and started shaking him for all he was worth.

"Cut that out!" Valgaav shouted.

Zelgadiss slunk down in his seat. He had his own answers to her question, and his imagination had taken him to dark places. He did not want to find out that his friends and relatives were cross-dressers on the sly; he really didn't. "Maybe some things are better left unsaid, Lina."

"No. They're. Not!" she punctuated her words with a pound to Zel's hard shoulder, the only part of him within easy reach, while still keeping her hold on Xelloss.

"Lina, you are tired and bitchy. Sit down and behave and I'll tell you." Xel was serious and extremely willful at the moment. "I had only meant that as a joke. I would rather just talk about it in the morning, but if you insist..."

"And I do..." Lina grumbled. She did not like him being correct and adult when she was being childish.

"Very well. I met Gabriel as undergraduates here years ago. His boyfriend at the time owned the Cavern. He invited me and a few friends to see the place, and it became a hangout for many of us. Both science nerds and arty students. Then Gabriel's boyfriend got very sick, and he dropped out of school to work the place and take care of him."

"AIDS?" Lina asked.

"Yeah. He died before the year was out. Gabby had nothing but bills. Since they weren't married or anything, he didn't own the Cavern or the apartment they were living in. He was about to lose everything and had no place to go."

"So, you stepped in, right?"

"Yes. I bought the building with both the club and two apartments. When Valgaav came, I introduced him to the place, which he liked and threw in some money of his own to spiff it up into the lovely nightclub it is now. Gabriel manages it and someday he'll buy us out."

"Who lives in the other apartment?"

"Spauld, currently. Gabby takes care of the rental, and keeps the profit."

"Okay." Lina's smile softened as she gazed into his eyes a moment. She liked his eyes when he was tired. He permitted her to see what he was feeling, because he had lost his ability to concentrate on shielding that entranceway to his thoughts. "So, why the act, Xelloss?"

"Just for fun, Lina. The first few times we just told jokes about university life and wore regular stuff, but the audience leaned a bit toward bawdier material, so we simply developed the act to accommodate their tastes. Satisfied? Any other burning questions you need to ask tonight?"

"Only one, but I'll ask it in private, later," she said in a low voice only he could hear.

Zelgadiss, in the meantime, was looking less pensive. Now that he understood what was going on, he was relieved that his mentors' images could remain untarnished in his mind. Nothing weird going on. "Pretty nice of you to do that for the guy," he said to Valgaav.

"Yeah, well nothing like wearing women's underwear for fun, is there Xel?" Valgaav said. He watched Zelgadiss' eyes widen and face color, and then started laughing. "You are soooo gullible!" Before Zelgadiss could become sulky, Valgaav said, "Xel, why don't you answer his first question, about the fight it looks like you got into?"

Xel protested, but gave into the pressure from all sides. "Okay, so Gourry didn't like the idea of Lina taking off with me instead of hanging out with him, and decided to ruin my chances of seducing dear Lina with a hard punch to my jaw. I was planning to go alone originally, but I knew Lina wanted to see the island. As it turned out, I might have missed seeing the test subjects in the flesh, so to speak, had Lina not been the curious observer that she was. We made a terrible discovery," he said as he patted the side of the bag, trying not to disturb Lina, "and escaped in the eye of a storm."

"Yeah," Lina said with a yawn stretching her jaws wide, "The plane glided through the sky exactly how a bowling ball doesn't. Xelloss is a pilot, did you know that, Zelly?"

"No, you are?" Zelgadiss had thought he couldn't be surprised by anything after having had his senses shocked so much by the experiences of the day and the late-night show, but he was wrong. "What did you find out, then?"

"I'm a versatile, multi-talented, complex guy," Xel said in a sigh, again closing his eyes. "But aside from that, what we learned was this: Mother has turned the medical facility into a personal laboratory using the inmates of the penitentiary and of the mental asylum as her test subjects. She has her evil finger-hooks into Zanaffar laboratories."

Valgaav cursed under his breath, and seized the steering wheel in a death grip. Zelgadiss twisted around in his front seat. "You have proof of that?"

"Not yet, but I will. What I have are these." Xel withdrew a sealed plastic bag containing a labeled bottle. He handed it to Zelgadiss. "Take a look at the watermark on the label and tell me what you see."

"**_ZP_**, but not just that."

Xel tensed and sat up, dislodging Lina. "What else?"

"This had better be worth disturbing me over," Lina grumbled.

"Whoever typed up this label did so on a typewriter."

The car engine idled roughly as they waited out a light at an empty intersection. "Time for an oil change," Valgaav muttered.

"O-kay, Zelgadiss..." Xel let out a sigh. Exhaustion was wearing away his thin veneer of sophistication. "I'll ask: Who the fuck cares? So what? It was typed on a typewriter. Why do you tell me this?"

"Well, if you're going to be that way..." Zelgadiss flung the bag at Xel's feet.

"Zelgadiss, it has been a long day, and I am very sorry. Now, illuminate me on the typing thing."

"Most Zanaffar Pharmaceutical labels are generated by computer and printed by laser copiers. In the test laboratories, they are typed individually on impact typewriters one-at-a-time, because for the most part they're one-time-only labels. With me so far?"

"Yeah and...?"

"This paper label has these little specks, which, and I'll bet you my next paycheck about this, under a microscope will turn into fibers in the paper with embedded markers-- a different fiber for each lab. That way a product is can be traced multiple ways back to the lab where it originated."

"Gods, Zelgadiss, have I told you I love ya, man?" Xel said in an affected tone, then chuckled and sat back in his seat.

"So, let me get this straight," Lina said. "We take off this paper and check out the marks under a microscope, and then we'll know where it came from– what lab that is, right?"

"Yeah," Zelgadiss began. The rest of his reply was clipped off by Valgaav.

"Xel?" Valgaav called out. "Get to the point. What's Zelas doing there?"

"She's creating her own of fountain of youth. Eternal life with your beauty intact."

"You have _got_ to be kidding!" Zelgadiss choked out.

"And if I'm right, your grandfather is a whole heck of a lot older than you think."

Zelgadiss turned around to look at Xel. "What? What in hell are you talking about?"

"We're gonna have to dig up some bodies, aren't we?" Lina asked.

"Dig up bodies!" Zelgadiss shrieked. "What the hell, I repeat, what in living hell...?"

"A.K.A. Wolfpack Island," Xel whispered. "That's living hell. That's where we will perform the exhumation."

"Why? Whose? What are we looking for?" Zelgadiss continued to blather, but since no one was answering, he stopped. "Xel?"

"I'll need a DNA sample from you, too." Xel sighed. "But why don't we all just go in and get come sleep and talk about all this in the afternoon?" It was far into the wee hours of Saturday morning already.

"What's the matter, Xel?" Valgaav asked as he parked the car outside Jillas' place.

"Well, I'm a bit tired. I haven't really come to grips with the death of my pet fish, and when things seem to be going well, I know that I have obviously overlooked something."

"What pet fish?" Zelgadiss asked, but no one answered.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Valgaav said to Xel. "Well, guys, and girl, we are here. Last stop for the night. Hey, I have no more material, all right? I plan to be spontaneous tomorrow."

"You are all being incoherent, me included," Zelgadiss said, getting in the last word, well almost.

"Speak for yourself!" Lina growled. She entered the strange house with mixed-up feelings.

(We'd like to credit the English writer, Quentin Crisp, Billy Crystal, Frederick Ryder, and countless others for their great quotes used in Xel and Valgaav's routine.)

**End Graveyard Shift Chapter 17**


	18. Plans

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 18 -**Plans-

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that

9 out of 10 doctors agree that 1 out of 10 doctors is an idiot.

* * *

Valgaav pulled Lina to the side, just outside the door, while Zelgadiss and Xel entered the house. "I don't care what all happened, but it wouldn't hurt you to say something nice to Xel. That's all."

He released her shoulder a tad too roughly, and then strode past, disappearing down the hall. Of all the men in Lina's life, Valgaav was not enamored of her. He thought she was immature, overbearing, and not feminine enough for his tastes. He couldn't imagine what the appeal was, and especially what it was about her that had Xel so bewitched. Of course, it was also possible that his older cousin was bound by her spell against his will, but not likely. Xel hadn't even acknowledged the dozens of young ladies, and men, who had flung themselves at him after the act beyond a smile and polite "thank you." "Skinny, arrogant little thing," he groused all the way to Jillas' room.

Jillas and Gravos were crammed into two beanbag chairs and taking turns blasting each other out of the sky. The brothers were so immersed in their Playstation game that they didn't notice Valgaav standing at the door. "Ah, we're all here now." Getting nothing more than a grunt in reply, Valgaav exited, closing the door behind him.

As he passed the study, he could hear low voices, Xel's and Lina's. "Great..." He found Zelgadiss in the front room shaking out a blanket. "Go ahead, take the couch."

"That's okay. I think something's living in it. The floor will be fine. I'm so beat I could sleep in the bath tub, and I might have if it had been cleaned in the past year." Zelgadiss flopped onto his nest. "Oh, and thanks for showing me around today. I had a great time."

"Glad you did; so did I. Now, before I pass out, good night, Zelgadiss."

While Valgaav had been doing his rounds, Xelloss had collected Lina and directed her to the study. "There's a futon here that opens out... Ah, here. For your sleeping comfort." He sank onto the sturdy futon corner, leaned back on a pillow, and draped his legs over the edge. His eyes opened as she rested beside him.

Lina liked how carefully he looked at her. It made her feel special and desirable. She had been feeling 'a little out of her league' most of the evening-- Noonsa's attack on her, which had required Xel's action to save her, his brilliant escape plan, his piloting skills, and then the whole nightclub affair. He owned the club and performed a mature act with dancing and singing and the list went on. There was the disciplined, capable Sherra, who was in love with him, most likely. Maybe. Lina was feeling inferior, something she hadn't felt in a very long time. It was an emotion she could fight, though, and would do so by lashing out at the one nearest her.

"I'm sorry about the club, Lina. I wasn't thinking clearly or I would have asked if you'd rather just come here instead."

"Eh, it was okay. I wouldn't mind going to another one, when I haven't been running through sewers, but I'd pick a different place. No offense, but it was kinda an old crowd there, ya know? Doesn't matter. I'd just like to pick my own kinda place."

Xel studied her closely. Valgaav's words came to mind, and he wondered if ten years was just too great an age difference. He was feeling terribly old at the moment. Part of the feeling was caused by the pills he had taken before leaving the club. He needed to rest. "Most of the places where the kids hang play hip hop stuff, which I'm not fond of."

"It's what's hot, though," Lina said.

"I can't dance to it or hum the melodies."

"It's the poetry of our times. It talks of the streets and what's real."

"I see enough of the reality of the streets in the morgue. I need escapism."

A gulf widened between them. It was nearly wide enough for a whole generation to get lost in, or would have been had Lina seriously been defending a position she believed in. She just wanted to stand for something he didn't already know everything about. She also loved the flash of danger in his eyes when he mentioned 'the morgue.' "Well, if it bothers you so much, you should change jobs," Lina said. "I'm cool with it all."

This comment riled him more. "Death by violent means should bother you, Lina. I'm there to speak for those who can't and tell their story and find their killers. You're just fascinated by the experience, like a kid with a new toy."

"Oh? So now I'm just a kid. I was wondering when you'd bring that up. I can't help my age, but at least I don't let life get me down. I take care of myself."

"You do, do you? What would have happened to you if I hadn't stopped Noonsa? Or if Sherra hadn't been responsible, or..."

"I didn't tell you to kill the guy! You could have knocked him over the head or something. I was about to kick him in the guts, which probably would have sent him and his knives sprawling. I'm pretty good at stuff like that. Hell, you can't even defend yourself against Gourry!"

Xel's temper was about to become unhinged. His reflexes were honed to lightning-quick death strikes through years of training on the island defending himself. Had he moved against Gourry any harder, he might have maimed the man. Noonsa's failing had been to forget that. "I'd better go. Whether you realize it or not, you need to sleep now."

Lina struck out with her fist. She had meant to hit him, but the punch turned gentle and tingled where it contacted his shoulder instead. His anger had given him an edgy quality, which Lina found most appealing. She could blot out the effeminate image she'd been carrying of him since the 'act' at the Cavern. She let her greater momentum carry her into his body, crushing his back into the futon. It was her turn to prove herself as she closed in to kiss him.

Xelloss was feeling light-headed. He knew the drugs were taking effect, relaxing him and enabling him to sleep. Soon the throbbing pain in his jaw would be dulled. Lina pressed a kiss firmly onto his lips. Oh how he wanted to give in to that kiss! Automatically, his free hand wrapped around her, then moved to position his hand over her hip. His thumb caressed over her lower rib, and he felt her shudder. Their legs were intertwined, pinning him in place. He hadn't the strength or motivation to fight her; that is, until the pressure on his jaw and fat lip caused a jabbing pain to cut through his fuzzy brain. He tried to persuade her to stop. "Lina..."

She was wearing the same dress that she had when they had dined with his mother earlier in the evening. At their brief layover at the Atlas City airport, she had changed out of her dry but casual attire and back into the dress. Her other clothes were wet or damp from the drainage pipe experience or by being bunched up in the bag together. Even the dress hadn't been completely dry, but passable. Her hair looked okay, but now that she was touching Xel, she was acutely aware of her overall state of uncleanliness. She didn't seem to notice his, but that may have been because he'd cleaned up briefly after the show to remove the makeup. Again, she felt like an unappealing kid next to this mature adult, and not thinking about the pain she had just caused his jaw, so when she felt him pull away slightly, she blushed and sat up. "I... need to go to the bathroom."

"I'll find you a shirt to wear," Xel said. "That dress is too nice to ruin." He hadn't intended to sound like an overbearing father, but to her, he had.

"I know! I can do that!" she snapped. To prove that she could, Lina hopped up and slid open the closet door. She spotted a huge jersey that Gravos must have once worn, and pulled it off its hanger. "I'll be right back."

Xelloss closed his eyes and flung an arm over them. "I must be crazy. I am too old for this girl, and she's falling in love with me. A part of me wants her too, but... Damn you, Valgaav, for awakening my conscience."

Lina washed her face in the sink, and then stared at her reflection. Compared to the well-built women in the club, not to mention Sherra, she did look like a girl. "I can do this," she told herself. "I'll show him that I'm grown up enough to take him on. I'm as good as any of them. So what if I don't wear all that make up?" Feeling a bit better after that pep talk, she scrambled out of the dress and into the voluminous shirt. "Not very sexy looking," she said in judgment of her reflection. "But he'll just want it off anyway, then it doesn't matter."

She swallowed hard. She just admitted to herself that she had decided to sleep with Xel, and was terribly unsure of what to do next. "Well, I'm sure _he_ won't be."

Lina opened the bathroom door and crept down the hallway and back into the study, closing the door behind her. It was dark, but she could detect his mounded figure on the futon just where she'd left him. Now her heart was pounding to get out, her hands clammy and her mouth dry. "Should have brushed my teeth," she thought, but remembered that her bag was too hard to find at that point.

"Xel?" She eased onto the futon, suddenly afraid to come into contact him. "Xel?"

She moved closer and heard his breathing; it was slow, deep, and even. "Are you asleep?"

His silence told her everything she needed to know. "Oh." As she fell back onto the other side of the mattress, she wasn't sure if she was disappointed or relieved. "I'm not ready," she decided. "Tonight, anyway." Her eyes closed.

The house was silent as the inhabitants slept the sleep of the dead.

* * *

It was late the next day before they were all aroused and out of the house. Valgaav, Zelgadiss, Lina, and Xelloss were headed back to Seyruun. Zelgadiss was in a good mood and speaking in an animated style to Valgaav about his hopes and dreams, come fall term. He couldn't wait until college started now. Lina and Xel were quietly holding down each end of the back seat.

"I'm stopping here for food, that all right with everyone?" Valgaav asked.

They hadn't eaten in ten hours or more and, yes, it was just fine with everyone. They loaded up with burgers and fries, and then Zelgadiss took his turn at the wheel, proud to have been given a turn. "I'll just drop you off at your house, okay Lina? Then we'll go on to our play practice."

"Sure," she grunted. Xel was ignoring her, as if nothing had happened, which it hadn't, but he wasn't lusting after her like she expected. It made her feel undesirable and made her cranky. She felt his eyes on her, even though they were nearly closed. "What's your problem?"

"You." He did not elaborate.

She smiled smugly, satisfied that she had gotten under his skin. It emboldened her to move over, stretch, and whisper into his ear. "Too bad you fell asleep last night. You missed all the fun." On her way back to her side, she nipped the un-inflamed portion of his lower lip. "Heh, heh..."

Xel's eyes flew open in surprise, but he said nothing.

Valgaav had noticed Xel's reticence to treat Lina like a potential girlfriend in the car, and it pleased him to think his words of wisdom might have had something to do with that. When he saw what he considered Lina teasing Xel just then, it annoyed him. Maybe if Lina knew more about Xel, she would leave him alone, Valgaav hoped. He thought about what that might be.

On awakening, he had discovered that Zelgadiss had forgotten a large part of the prior evening's events, due to the alcohol he had consumed. He had reviewed with Zelgadiss the few details he knew of Xel and Lina's most foul adventure, but then Zel plied him with dozens of questions he couldn't or wouldn't answer. It was time, Valgaav decided, for Xel to reveal information for both Lina and Zelgadiss' sakes. "So, Xel, why don't you tell them a story about your childhood? I think Zelgadiss needs to understand why you're not more broken up about gutting that man. Lina, too."

"I don't that's a good idea, Valgaav."

But Lina, wanting to prove she could be mature about it, and Zelgadiss, who was dying to know, convinced him at last. "Oh, all right. I'll tell one involving Noonsa. He wasn't always on Wolfpack Island. In fact, he worked for Zanaffar for years before I met him. We met in the autopsy labs. He made nasty jokes up about the dead people we examined. I didn't know back then, but I suspect we were already sending test samples for technicians to examine and gather data points for Zelas' experiments. Anyway, Noonsa was disrespectful and sloppy, and I told him so on several occasions. There was one time, though, that I walked in on him dissecting a ... a living man. He was unconscious, but the heart was beating. I could see it. Then he gutted the patient, the contents pouring out onto the table. I started yelling and trying to stop him. It was unconscionable! He said it was for a test. He drove his knife through the man's heart, stopping it instantly. He told me to go play with the dead bodies, and prepare them for burial if I couldn't take the 'real' work. That day, I promised him that if I ever found him torturing a living creature, I would gut him just as I had seen him do."

"And you did," Zelgadiss said as he slowed done to exit the freeway. "That's why you did that. I thought sounded rather brutal at the time."

Lina's face took on a look of understanding. "That bastard! He would have done that to me, right? I mean, if you hadn't come along?"

"I couldn't take the chance that he _wouldn't_ try. In the time I might have talked him out of it, he could have lunged at you. He had it coming, although I wish someone other than me had done it." Xel looked Lina squarely in the eyes. "The work I did on that island was not something I'll ever be proud of. Too much of it was unethical and borderline illegal. I'm never going back."

"Knowing all you did about what was going on, I'm surprised she let you go," Lina said. "You know what I mean, go to work for Gaav, in that worker trade?"

"Was that for real?" Zelgadiss asked. "That whole thing about trading you to Gaav? Did he really just want you for your bowling?"

Xel had to decide what to say. He had to be cautious, because he had been concealing the truth from them. He was uncomfortable revealing information detrimental to his image, but they deserved to know. "She sent me to spy on you, Zelgadiss, in particular. But if that gets to Gaav or back to her, I'm dead."

"We won't tell," Zelgadiss promised, as did the others. "But why me?"

"I wasn't told. I had no idea at the onset, but now I imagine it has to do this Zanaffar link."

Lina considered what he said, but found it gave her indigestion. "What if Zelas notices that we left the island, I mean, if we aren't there to even stop by and say goodbye, won't she be suspicious?"

"Don't worry about it. I'll take care of that," Xel said dismissively. He was worried, though, and she could read his face even as he hid his eyes again.

She leaned in very close and spoke low so that only he could hear. "Is that other little plane still at the Seyruun airport? The one supposed to make it look like it carried us, while Sherra chased it through the storm?"

"I don't know, probably." His eyes opened a slit. "I doubt the scam was needed. No one even noticed the planes, most likely... anyway."

"Lina, we're here," Zel shouted out as he pulled into Amelia's driveway.

"Zelly, don't leave without me."

"What?"

"WAIT. FOR. ME." Lina shouted back, and the said to Xel, "I need to change my clothes and dump the wet stuff. Gimme yours, too."

"Leave the dress, Lina and..." Xel began.

She didn't wait, but unzipped his bag and pulled out the wettest stuff she could find, and then stuffed them into her bag. She slammed shut the truck, and yelled to Zelgadiss over her shoulder as she ran off, "WAIT!"

"What's up?" Zelgadiss asked.

"I made her a stupid promise," Xel said. "She wants her first flying lesson."

"But you have play practice! Aaaand isn't it a little late to start that?"

"Tell them I'm not well, which I'm not. This won't take all that long." Xel pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number from memory. "Sei? You still in Seyruun? No? How about the plane? Good. No, I'll take care of it. No problem. Bye."

Valgaav turned to Xel and spoke for the first time. "Watch your back, and her, too."

'Her' was Lina, Xel knew. "I have no illusions. I'm okay now."

Valgaav nodded curtly. "Glad to hear it."

When Lina returned with her bag, Xel said, "I explained to our friends that we begin flying lessons today."

Lina had picked up on Xel's excuse for going to the airport. "Yeah, if I don't hold him to it and get started right away, summer will be over and I'll have missed my chance."

Zelgadiss drove out to the airport, and dropped Lina and Xel at the private plane hangers. "Have fun," Zelgadiss said as they took off for the play practice. To Valgaav, he said, "You believe all that bullshit?"

"No, but this isn't about romance. Xel's figured it's time to move on. He's got a few loose ends to tie up back at home. Forget them; we got other things to do."

* * *

Xel landed the two-man Piper, and taxied back to the Wolfpack Island hanger. As before, his sleek, black car was ready and waiting for them.

"There's this house, no... cabin. A very small shack, more like it, where we can rest up, if you'd like."

"Where is it?" Lina asked.

"Not far. On the coast."

"Hmmm, sure," she sighed and leaned back into the comfortable leather seat. The roof was open, exposing Lina to a snapping breeze and some late afternoon sky. The horizon was indistinct with the onset of evening and a dark line of fog forming over the ocean.

Xel was quiet, aloof, speaking only when spoken to. He regretted his coming here. It was not a good idea, and then again, it was an unexpected, and so, devious one. If everything worked out as he hoped, then he would have Lina to thank for saving his ass. They would be even. If not, then he would have to think of something on his own. "This is as far as the road goes. We'll walk the rest the way."

Lina hopped out. "I hope it's far. I love the beach!"

"Just start on the path. I'll be along with the bags."

He waited until she disappeared around a grass-covered sand dune, then he took up a bag in each hand and followed. The more distance he kept between them the better, for his sake. He was immensely attracted to her, still, _more_ now that he had decided to give her up. He watched her up ahead, dancing in the fog wisps and jumping the tiny wavelets at the water's edge, oblivious to his stormy thoughts. He tried contacting his mother using the new number she had given him, and got her answering service. "This is Xel. We thought we'd stop by for dinner on the way out. If that's not okay then call me." He left her his number, put away the phone, and then loped up the path.

"You weren't kidding about this being a shack." Lina was looking in at the door of the unlocked, two-room building. "This where you bring your girlfriends?"

"It's been all kinds of things in the past, but a romantic beach cabin is not one of them. Dad stayed out here by himself sometimes, which is how I learned about it." Xel tossed their bags onto the floor and looked around. Nothing had changed in all the time since he'd been there.

"I don't wanna swim, but could we just beach comb a little before it gets too cold?"

Better outside than locked together within the confines of the single-bed room, Xel thought. "Okay."

Lina did the talking, while Xel added the necessary, friendly "uh, huh's". He remained at a distance, both in their spatial arrangement and in an emotional way. It was a torment to be near her and not touch, but he was determined to do the right thing for once in his life. He had even accepted that Gourry might be an acceptable guy for her, for the rest of summer, if he didn't have to observe them.

She was not blind to the change in his demeanor. She even appreciated the personal space he was giving her; it was a sign of respect. It was about time he considered her an equal and not some stupid kid, but she also wouldn't have minded so much if he'd held her hand. When he had been too forward in the past, she had been the one pushing him away. Now, it seemed, he was letting her be the aggressor. Lina ran back to where Xel was throwing rocks into the surf. "Hey, do you think if we went to the castle now we could get dinner? I'm short a meal."

"If that's what you'd like," he said with a smile. The split lip had healed sufficiently for him to smile freely again. The swelling was mostly gone, too, leaving behind a dark bruise.

Lina startled him by grasping his hand and hopping up to kiss him lightly on the other cheek. "You bet! I don't have to put on that dress again, do I?"

"Not if you don't want to."

"Good. I stuffed a skirt in the bag. I'll just change into that, and then we can go. You stay outside."

He stood transfixed by the cabin door, his heart pounding double time against the waves. It had been the lightest of touches, which stirred his guarded passions, lighting his desire. Against his wishes, he was on fire. "This is stupid," he thought. "I'm letting some girl get to me." He reset his resolve to break from Lina's spell just in time for her to reappear.

"Ready!" Lina swept past him and into the car. His arm tingled where a lock of her hair had caressed him.

He gathered their bags and stored them in the back seat of the convertible. "Damn it all," he grumbled to himself and kicked an errant shell out of his path. "This is no time to become irrational."

"What was that?" Lina watched him fall into his seat and start the car. "Nervous about what she might do to us? 'Cause I gotta tell ya, I'm not worried a bit. After that escape plan you pulled off last night, I'm sorta impressed with you. I mean, you had that all worked out ahead of time. You must have been down there in those pipe lines scouting the paths, right? That heart-marker thing was put there by you, wasn't it?"

"Yes, a few days before, I marked several escape routes depending on which way we, or I, as I was thinking at that time it would be just me down there, would take."

"So, I wasn't meant to see the heart?"

"No, Lina. It doesn't mean what you think."

"What was it supposed to mean then? 'X' and 'L' heart transplant patients? Come on, where's your sense of humor?"

"Lain. The 'L' was for Lain."

"Lain? Who's Lain?"

"The other pilot. Lain Sherra." Xelloss frowned as he considered the name. If he rearranged the letters, "Lain" became "Lina."

"Oh." Lina swallowed hard and gathered her emotions. "That makes sense, I guess."

He hated himself for saying that, and admired how she hadn't started to cry. He swung the car around and parked, engine still running, at the castle front entrance. "You don't have to do this for me."

"For you? Hell, I'm gonna clear myself! Come on, let's go!"

This time, when Xelloss threw open the doors to the dining room, Zelas was prepared. "You're early, although, I have to admit I wasn't expecting to see you again at all."

"You got my message, I take it?" he asked flatly. He heart was not in this event at all. He hated lying to Lina. He hated everything.

"Yes, didn't you get mine?"

"No, I didn't," Xel looked over the empty table. "When is dinner being served?"

"In a minute. I left a message at your home number."

"Why didn't you leave with the number I gave you? I'm not _at_ home; I'm here with my cell phone, which is why I gave you that number. You think I'd leave without saying goodbye?" He smiled politely, but Lina wasn't fooled. Something was bugging him. He wasn't the same Xel with whom she entered the Cavern club.

"We gotta get back tonight, so if dinner's going to be much longer..."

"What's the hurry?" Zelas turned her x-ray eyes on Lina.

"Well, we have a bowling game tomorrow, don't you?"

"Yes. Yes, of course." The woman looked away as a manservant entered bearing a tray of food. "Thank you, Thurm." Zelas waited until the man had portioned out some of the food to each of them and left, before continuing. "I'm afraid we had a little disturbance in one of our labs last night. One of our researchers has died. He was an acquaintance of yours, Xelloss."

"Oh? That's too bad. Who was it?"

"Noonsa. You remember him, don't you?"

Xel frowned. "He was a cruel man. I couldn't forget him. These potatoes are delicious."

"I was curious," Zelas continued, "if you slept well last night, my dear?"

Lina looked up from her plate. "Ah, no, actually. The storm kept me awake." Lina wondered if the woman had checked their rooms and noticed their belongings were missing. That would have to be excused. "Then there was this horrible howling noise! It scared me to death so I ran out into the hall and found Xelly. He took me away to some cabin, where it was quieter." Lina hoped it was true that the beach would be quieter in a storm.

"Quieter? Really?" Zelas asked.

Xel played along, thankful that Lina was so adept at lying. "That's right, Mother, I drove out to Dad's old place. You know the wolves never go near the coastline. The wind was whipping up the water, but it _seemed_ quieter."

Zelas continued testing her son throughout the meal, but he remained calm. He never took the bait she dangled in front of him. Lina consumed her meal in earnest, pretending to be empty-headed and innocent, of murder anyway. "Do we bowl against your team next?" she asked, returning to that comfortable topic.

"That's Gaav's team you're on? No, I think that's next week." Zelas turned toward Xel, and asked, "Can you stay for dessert? It is a frozen coconut and mango cream."

Xel nodded, and then asked Lina, "If you think we have time, that is?"

"Yeah, sure. Is the weather still good? I wouldn't want to have to go back flying through anything like that storm we heard last night. I'd swim first."

Zelas looked at her son as if to say, "Can't you find a woman of intellect, like her older sister?" She actually said to Lina, "You shouldn't attempt to swim, dear. The water is far too cold. But you have nothing to worry about, tonight. If you leave in the next hour, you'll still have light and fair weather once you get above the fog layer. Xelloss, I regret not having time to spare with you this visit. Promise to come again soon?"

"I haven't much free time, but I'll return to the island, I'm sure."

"Let me know in advance," she said in a tone of command. "I can prepare a special treat for you. In the meantime, it seems Noonsa killed himself, and I'm responsible for his interment, since his wife is no longer on the island. I knew he was having marital problems, but I though he was under control. So sad. It will set back our schedule weeks."

Xel wore a look of mild concern when he asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I'll let you know." Zelas left the room, frosting her path with her icy stare.

Xelloss listened for his mother's retreating footsteps, and then said, "Thank you, Lina."

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Let's get out of here." She couldn't stand his tender looks.

Xel and Lina left shortly after that. Lina was dispirited. She had been right about the Sherra woman and Xel, but why had he been leading her on all this time when he had this other girl? Lina, in fact, became annoyed at him for all the things he had ever said and done to her. Before they reached the plane, she was about to blow up. "You're a real creep, you know that? Leading me on, making me think you were, how was it you put it? 'Crazy about me?' What a load of crap!" She didn't say any of that, but she thought it very loudly to herself. Her pride wouldn't allow her hurt to show, not that way.

Thankfully, Sherra wasn't there to pilot them out; some other guy she didn't even look at accompanied them. Xel flew them to Seyruun and the other man returned the plane, she figured.

After the pleasant, thin, dry air of Atlas City and the damp chill of the island, the humid heat of Seyruun in August was oppressive. Not that Lina noticed much; even with the air conditioning blowing in her face, the air was thick with unsaid words inside their car. She hated feeling hurt, jealous, and betrayed. She wanted her feelings known, but didn't want to be the one to start talking. Once she got started, she knew there would be no controlling what she might say or do. Also, there was something about the set of Xel's jaw which said, "Leave me alone," mirroring her own sentiments and giving her a reason to clamp her mouth shut. The only sound in the car was that of the music playing background to their roiling emotions.

The sun had long set by the time Xel let Lina off at her house. She told him to just go on home, and carried her own bag to her private entrance off Amelia's main house. But as she approached her door, she spotted a dark form hunched over on the stoop. She was about to cry out for Xel, when the figure moved and took recognizable form.

"Gourry? Is that you? What are you doing here?" Lina sounded perturbed, but she was also relieved. Lina dropped her bag and ran into his outstretched arms. "How did you know when I'd be here?"

"Well, Xel called me from the plane. Said you were landing at the airport, and that you'd be home in a few minutes. I hid my car. I wanted to surprise you. Guess I did, huh?"

"Yeah, you did. You say Xel called you? I didn't know he did that."

"Sure was nice of him to call me like he did. He explained everything, and I said I was sorry for punching him like I did. He's okay with it and all, but I still feel bad 'bout not trusting him. Anyway, I know it's too late to go out, but I had to see you."

"Too late? Bah! It's never too late."

"Oh yeah? Okay, sure, Lina. So, where'd you like to go? Doughnut place should be selling a batch of hot ones in ten minutes."

Lina took time only to toss her belongings in her room, and then dragged Gourry outside. She was baffled by Xel's behavior, but had decided not to waste the present worrying about him. There was always tomorrow, when she'd be bowling alongside him. With difficulty, Lina balled up her feelings and crammed them into her brain's 'recycle bin' to deal with later. Besides, she owed Gourry some attention. "Fresh doughnuts! Let's go!"

* * *

Xel believed that all the murders he had looked into tied Zanaffar Pharmaceutical Research Laboratory to Wolfpack Asylum and Penitentiary. He also suspected that Zelgadiss' grandfather, Rezo Greywords, was in cahoots, whether willfully or not, at some time with his mother, Zelas Metallium. He also felt that the accidental explosion, as police called it, which had nearly taken Zelgadiss' life and caused Rezo's blindness, was purposeful. To what purpose, Xel could only guess. Had the intention been to scare Rezo into stopping or continuing his testing? The explosion might even been planned kill him, but Xel felt that was the least likely possibility. He wanted answers, which was why he was about to break into the Greywords' home Sunday night, while he knew Lina was safe with Gourry.

He had jimmied the back sliding door off its glider-frame, and had just placed the heavy door to the side, when a voice from the shadows behind him asked, "What are you doing here, Xel?"

"Damn!" Had the door been lighter, Xel might have jumped a foot, as it was, the weight grounded him. He recognized the voice, but it took him a second or two to attach a face and to control his own voice. "I could ask you the same, couldn't I, Filia?"

"You could, but I asked first."

"Shouldn't you be bowling?"

"Not all night. How about you?"

"Over and it sucked. Now leave."

"Not until you tell me what you are doing lurking about Zelly's house at midnight. Tell me, or I'll scream," she advised him.

"Okay... I'm collecting something for Zelgadiss." This was close to the truth.

"Oh? Why doesn't he just get it himself?"

"He doesn't want to run into his grandfather."

Filia stepped into the faint glow from a streetlight reflecting off a wall. Xel could see that she was confused. "How can Zelly avoid that? He must see him everyday."

"Ah, I guess you haven't been paying close attention lately. Zelgadiss is living permanently with Valgaav and me, at least for the summer. He blames Rezo for his unfortunate accident, and prefers to avoid him whenever possible. However, he left some medications here, which he would like another laboratory to check out, just in case the contents were tampered with." That was not entirely untrue.

"And that's where you come in, you figure? That all sounds pretty lame, to me. Breaking and entry? Why don't you use a key? Surely Zelly still has a key."

Alas, now he had to lie. "The locks have been changed." Xel pulled out his set of keys and tried one, demonstrating that it no longer worked; of course, it never had fit that lock, because it was the key to his father's car back on Wolfpack Island.

Filia was incensed. "His own _grandfather _locked him out of his _own_ home! That awful man! Course, I never liked the man, which is why I've come over so late—to see Zelly and avoid Rezo. I need to talk to him. I made a promise."

"How nice, but your business will have to wait. As you can see, I was here first, and now I would like to get on with my business, and get this over with, so, if you would leave now..."

"I'll help." Filia narrowed hers eyes as if she could better read his mind that way. "Don't tell me you couldn't use a lookout."

"I won't, but two make twice the noise. He may be blind now, but the old man can hear just fine, and Eris is still living here."

"I won't make noise, besides, I know where the bedrooms and bathrooms are. I've been in them before. Have you?"

Xel hadn't been past the front room. Valgaav had been in Zelgadiss' bedroom, but not Xel. "Okay, Filia, lead the way. First, we check out the bathrooms— Rezo's."

"But why _his_ if it is Zelly's medication you're here for?" She eyed him suspiciously again.

"Because _Zelly_ said to. Golly, Miss Filia, you can trust me." His silly smile only made her less trusting, but she did want to make amends to Zelgadiss, and this seemed to be a good way.

"Upstairs, then," she said.

The reluctant couple crept into the back room, past the kitchen, and slowly up the stairs to the first landing. There, they paused to listen for movement.

"I hear someone in a room up ahead. Maybe Eris. It is early for everyone to be asleep, you know," Filia whispered.

They stood there in the dark for two minutes, then, convinced that no one was coming their way, they continued to the top of the stairway. Filia pointed to a door on the left and mouthed, "Rezo."

Next to that room was a bathroom. Xel didn't hesitate. He extracted an evidence bag from his pocket, and entered the room. Around the sink were two bottles. What he wanted were samples from Zanaffar labs, different ones if possible for his label testing. Inside the medicine cabinet he found dozens of non-standard containers._ Could these be experimental drugs?_– he wondered. Several were duplicates, so he took those. Just as he was about to leave, he noticed the trash can. More empty bottles with the distinguishing 'ZP' watermark. He added those to his collection, and started to leave.

Filia, standing guard outside the bathroom door, pushed him back inside, and then slipped in and locked the door. She held a finger to her lips, "Shhh."

They could hear a door open at the far end of the hall, then the footsteps of someone approaching the bathroom. If it was Rezo, they were sunk. There was a gentle rap on the door. "Are you all right?"

It was Eris checking on Rezo. Xel knew that silence wouldn't do. He repeated segments of Rezo's speech patterns and vocal range to himself until he was confident he could pull this off.

"Sir?" Eris sounded worried.

Xel flushed the toilet and turned on the water at the sink to further mask his voice, then said, "I'm fine. Trouble sleeping. Go on back to bed."

"All right."

Footfalls softly stepped down the hall, a door opened then closed with a 'click,' then silence returned. Xel's muscles ached with tension as he held an uncomfortable position– he was determined not to touch any of Filia's body as it pressed closer to his in an effort put as much space between herself and the door. He could sense her similar discomfort with the close confines. He bent slightly. Her perfume was citrus-y and clean-smelling, and her warm body movements were arousing. He couldn't remember when he had last made love to a woman-- or he could, and it had been totally unsatisfying. Far too long, he decided, if a snob like Filia could excite him. "I don't hear anything," he whispered into her ear. "Go, now."

Filia nodded and carefully turned the doorknob. She opened the door slightly, but his hand stopped it at a crack. "Careful."

Xel peered over her shoulder, but could see nothing moving on the other side. "Go slow."

Filia stole past the door to Rezo's room, then onward to the stairs. Xel followed her down and through the back room, until they finally darted out the back door. There he stopped to lift and jiggle the door back into its slot. He pushed until it slid into place and the catch engaged. Whether the poor lock caught or not, he didn't care or wait around to check. He dashed around to the front sidewalk, down the street, and around the block to where he had hidden his parked car. At his heels was Filia.

When he reached his car he turned around. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked her. He had hoped she would go home without his telling her to.

"I am going to see Zelgadiss."

"So you have a car. Where is it?"

"Gourry gave me a lift on his way to seeing Lina."

"And if Zelgadiss had been home, how would you have gotten back to your house?"

"He would have driven me, naturally."

"Up a wall, perhaps, but that's as far as he could go. He hasn't got a car, you know."

"Yes, he has. He drove me to your place for that so-called party of yours."

"What facet of reality do you consider to be the here and now, Filia? That wasn't his car. He stole his grandfather's helper's-- ah, I guess that's what you'd call her-- Eris' car. He got caught and had to quit his job and go work for his grandfather, where he was nearly blown up. Stop me if you've heard any of this before."

"I hate you!"

"Oh, and then you dropped him like the shallow, narcissistic bitch you are. Have a nice walk home." He opened the driver's door and dipped into the car. "He'll get over what you did to him, but he won't forget it."

She grabbed hold of the door handle and wedged herself into the path of the door, blocking it. "I want to see him and apologize. I didn't think I had to go through you, but if I do, I will."

Her spunk and resolve impressed him, in spite of her otherwise dislikable personality. "Get in on the other side. If he wants to see you, he can, but if he doesn't, I'll take you straight back to your home immediately. Agreed?"

"Yes."

* * *

Monday mornings were bad enough, but Monday-night-back-to-work-after-a-three-day holiday was even worse. The phone was ringing as they unlocked the back door to the morgue. Valgaav ran to catch it on its last ring. "Rubyeye Morgue and Funeral home. How can I help you? Oh, sure. Right now? Okay, I'll put our driver on the line for directions. Hold a second, please." He cupped his hand over the mouth piece and shouted, "Lina, take this before you change! Zelgadiss, hold on, you'll be going out with her."

Lina was thrilled to have a 'pick up' to do. She wasn't looking forward to sitting around watching and avoiding Xel all night, every night at work. "Got it. Thanks. Okay, Zelly, we got a fresh one not too far, and get this: not surprisingly, it's on some remote Zanaffar property."

"Not again," Zel groaned. "I wish I never heard of that place."

"You are not alone," Xel said from his desk. "I'll start preparing slides of the label fibers for analysis. You and I can look them over when you get back."

Valgaav flipped over the chart with a sigh. "A simple embalming, that's all. If you help me get this one out of the way fast, Xel, we'll be able to do a full autopsy on the body they're picking up when it comes in. Coming from Zanaffar means it may be connected to the other murders. I'll bet you don't want anyone else to do it."

"Right, I'll go change." Xel and Valgaav entered the changing room to don their coveralls, masks, and slip into gloves, while Lina and Zelgadiss put on disposable protective clothing, bundled up gloves, and nabbed the keys to the van on their way out.

Lina drove hell-bent on getting to the designated pickup location while there was still a hint of light left. She decided that the job would be harder in the short days of winter, the sun angle low to the horizon, and the days often clouded and gloomy. At least people with normal hours slept through the deepest dark of winter nights, she thought. "If I drive fast enough," she muttered mostly to herself, "we might have twenty minutes of dusk in which to work."

Zelgadiss wanted to know what was going on between her and Xelloss. It was apparent to everyone that they were hardly exchanging banal conversation, and, what was a more telling sign, Xel was keeping his eyes off her. Valgaav was tight-lipped as usual, maybe even more than usual, casting an uninviting aura about him since they all returned from Atlas City. Zelgadiss had hoped that his friendship with Valgaav had deepened somewhat, and so he was disappointed by the return to normalcy. As far as his relationship with Xel was concerned, it was as if they were complete strangers again. He couldn't even imagine inquiring about the second trip to Wolfpack Island. He was daunted by the older man to begin with, and now Xel remained locked in his room or was "unavailable."

Zelgadiss was not ready to spend the rest of summer working with two men and a woman who were like smoldering coals threatening to combust at any moment. He was afraid to speak, should some inappropriate word or look scrape someone's feeling the wrong way, and send the ignition sparks flying. He had to do something, so he made a lunch date with Gourry for tomorrow. He hoped to gain insight into the problem and, frankly, have a pal to talk to for a change. But that was for the next day and now he was stuck in close quarters with Lina.

"That was some bowling tournament, wasn't it?" Zelgadiss asked, hoping sports would be a safe topic. His grandfather had always warned him against discussing personal problems, politics, or religion with a touchy person like Lina.

"We all sucked, and that's the truth."

"Yep. I didn't know Xel had a sprained finger. He had as bad a game as I'll bet he's ever had." Zel hoped Lina might see the opening for what it was: an excuse to vent about Xel.

"I think it was just a made-up rationalization for a bad game. The finger was fine before that. I was bushed from the day before; I just didn't have any energy. You were okay and so was Valgaav, not that it mattered. We still lost."

Zel decided that Lina wasn't going to say more about her relationship with Xel for today, and so he gave up. "On the bright side, the only other team with a perfect record, up until Sunday, was Zelas' team, and Gourry and his team trounced them."

Lina's face lit up. "Really? So they beat Zelas, eh? Good, that means we're tied."

"Yeah," Zelgadiss said. "Lina, I see flashing lights over there."

"Yeah, looks like that's our destination. You so, ah, talked to Gourry last night? I had wanted to, but I was so knocked out I just went home and slept."

Zelgadiss checked his watch, making a mental note of the time. In two minutes he had learned that Gourry and Lina were more 'in,' and that Xel was possibly 'out', which made sense given Xel's behavior. "Actually, I talked to Filia, and she told me about it. I guess Gourry had an awesome game."

"Filia? I thought she was a lost cause. Oh, look who's here!"

Zelgadiss was relieved by the interruption. Suddenly he didn't want to talk about Filia, not with Lina. They were greeted by the now-familiar Detectives Zolf and Rodimus, who led them to the naked body of a young woman. "Looks like she was strangled with her own blouse," Zolf commented as Rodimus took crime-scene photos.

"She hasn't been dead long," Lina noted. "Her body's still warm and rigor mortis hasn't set in." She turned to tell Zelgadiss to begin loading the body onto the stretcher, and then stopped when she noticed his face blanch. "What's the matter?"

"I recognize her; the face, that is." Zelgadiss' face flushed when he said that, but it was too dark for the others to notice.

Zolf paused in his note-taking. "Oh? You can identify the body?"

"When I was working at Zanaffar, she was in the research labs where my grandfather worked. I think she was the assistant to a lead chemist by the name of Halciform, and her name was... Rubia."

"Well, let's get Rubia back to the morgue, and see if we can't figure out who killed her and left her here," Lina said.

"We'll need DNA, fingerprints, hair, anything to ID the assailant, when we catch him."

"Of course, on it." Lina asked, "You have a clue who that might be?"

"We'll start by locating Dr. Halciform, I think," Zolf replied. He stepped within arm's reach of Lina and lowered his voice. "You weren't in last Friday night."

"Er, no. We were all in court. Why, was there a related case?"

"Oh, no. I had called and there was no answer." Zolf stepped back to allow Lina and Zel space to work.

Before leaving, Zolf tried again. "You seem busy tonight. Perhaps I'll call you at a later time?"

"What? Oh, yeah sure. We'll let you know what we find, too. Thanks. Later, guys."

Back in the van, Zelgadiss asked, "You know he was trying to see if you'd go out with him, right? The guy's interested, so if you're not, just tell him, okay? It's hard enough to ask a girl out, much less figure out her confusing signals."

Lina rammed the gear shift into position, her annoyance obvious. "I'm not signaling anybody anything. I gotta boyfriend, and I'm trying to just do a job here, all right? Now, mind your own business!"

"Boyfriend?" Zelgadiss asked bravely. "And that would be...who?"

"Gourry, you idiot. Now shut up! I gotta keep focused on the road here."

Zelgadiss nodded and looked straight ahead. So, there was absolutely no Xel and Lina thing going on, at least not anymore. That was okay by him. He'd talk to Gourry later and confirm it. In the meantime, he planned to steer clear of Xel. Life could be overly complicated, even with a clue to how it worked.

While Lina and Valgaav wrestled the new body onto a morgue table, Xel called Zelgadiss over to his desk. "I have some slides for you to look at. Tell me what you see."

Without touching the adjustments, Zelgadiss peered through the eye piece. "Okay..."

"Now, look at this one."

"It's the same fiber-type. Are these off the same label then?"

"Not quite. The first came off a bottle from Wolfpack, while the second I collected from a bottle in Rezo's bathroom."

"Rezo's? How did you get that?"

"Filia didn't mention how we ran into one another the other night?" Xel smiled, and shook his head. He quickly explained about the break in. Before Zelgadiss could question him further, Xel continued, "What is important is that Rezo has been taking the same stuff some of those bodies were subjected to. It's too complex for me to analyze, but I sent the trace powder from his bottle to another lab. I have a dozen or more labels with the same fibers you were telling me about, which mark them as from his lab, too. My guess is that the bottles contained chemical variations of one another. I swabbed out the residues, and sent those in for lab work with the others."

"But what does it mean?" Zelgadiss said as much to himself as to his cousin.

"I can't say for sure, because I don't know, but we can make some educated guesses. Rezo has been secretly creating drugs in his lab that are not part of Zanaffar's average offerings. Somehow, those drugs made their way to Zelas' laboratories, where she's been testing them on subjects from the penitentiary and the asylum. I have only had time to trace a couple of the codes found on bottles in Rezo's cabinet to their corresponding match in the records on Wolfpack Island."

"But you found matches? That's incredible, Xel." Zelgadiss was impressed with his cousin's skills. "You ought to be a spy or something." He compared both slides again and stood up. "So you think Rezo has been taking some experimental drug he designed."

"Not just _some _drug, Zelgadiss, the Fountain of Youth. They want to live forever, or at least stop aging, and, you must admit, your grandfather could be your father from the looks of him. My mother, whom you haven't met but Lina can attest to this, looks younger than she should as well, so I think she started taking it at some point."

"How do you think she found out about it? Rezo wouldn't have shared that kind of information with anyone outside of Zanaffar. He has always been very loyal."

"I've been wondering about that, too. Maybe he needed more test subjects, and he had to get her involved. Maybe he made a mistake, and gave it to the wrong person, which led Zelas to him. Maybe Zelas saw Rezo, noticed how young he looked, and pressured him for his secret. I don't know, but I'm going to find out."

"And my accident was linked to all this, planned or accidental. Okay, then, while you're answering questions, where does the disinterment that you mentioned come in? You think we should check some of the bodies on Wolfpack Island to prove that the drug testing was the cause?"

"Well, yes, in a way..." Xel paused while he decided how much to say. "One body in particular."

"I have a bad feeling that this has something to do with that DNA sample I just gave you."

"Oh, don't feel bad about that. The question is, do you want to be part of the tomb raiding?"

"Count me in," Zelgadiss said.

"Okay, that's a start, but we'll need more help."

* * *

Valgaav noticed Zelgadiss scratching his legs the next day. Zel was in a hurry to meet Gourry for lunch, and he rushed out before Valgaav could ask him about the itching. Valgaav mentioned it to Xel. "You have all these cats on flea medication?"

"Of course, why?"

"Oh, Zelgadiss had a leg covered with bug bites."

Xel thought that over. "And you don't and I don't, and he's been with one of us all the time."

"Not last night. He and Lina did a pick up."

"They were outside, too. I remember them mentioning getting grass caught in the gurney wheels. I wonder..."

"I'm seeing Amelia at lunch, so I'll check on Lina. It would be interesting if both she and Zelgadiss got bitten by the same bugs at that site." He looked away, not wanting to see Xel's face. If Xel blamed him for disrupting his little ill-begotten romance, he hadn't said so, but then he wasn't saying anything to anyone. "That body they picked up... I didn't notice bite marks on her skin."

Xel's eye's flashed. "I get where you're heading with this. A dead body wouldn't attract blood-sucking insects, so if the body was dropped there, or was killed soon after arriving there, then you wouldn't expect to see bites. But..."

"But...the murderer might have bites, too."

"Exactly!"

"All right. I'm on my way to see Amelia. I'll let you know what I find out."

"Take the camera!" Xel shouted, but Valgaav already had it in his hands.

Zel met Gourry for lunch. The first thing Gourry did was warn him. "Uh, Sylphiel will probably stop by. She's at her new job, and I think she's kinda lonely."

"That would be okay, but I want to talk to you first, alone." Zelgadiss didn't mention about what. "I saw Filia last night."

"That's good. I saw Lina last night." Gourry looked up shyly from under a fall of heavy blonde bangs. "But you go first."

He had a reason for wanting to hear what Zelgadiss had to say about Filia. The week before, Filia had come to him asking about a job opening. She knew Sylphiel had left and that he was looking to hire another woman. Filia wanted that job, and knew she was qualified. Gourry had agreed, but with the condition that she first apologize to Zelgadiss for how she treated him after his accident.

"It went okay, I guess. She was nice. She admitted that she hadn't handled my appearance change well, and claimed that now she wants to be friends." Zelgadiss looked up from his glass. "I told her I wanted to try again. I asked her out."

"What did she say?" But then Gourry saw Zelgadiss shield his eyes from him using his long silvery bangs. "That's okay, you don't haveta say."

Zelgadiss shrugged. "She wasn't mean about it, you know. It's just that I could tell then that she'd meant friend-friend, not boyfriend. We'll still do stuff together, maybe, but not like... But still, it was something that she came to see me. I hadn't expected her to after this long. Not that I hope it'll amount to something."

"Yeah, I know. That's tough, Zel." He would not tell his friend that he had anything to do with her visit. It was painfully apparent that Zelgadiss' ego was still fragile.

"It's just that she's so beautiful. I guess I was lucky she noticed me at all." He shook his head, but he wasn't sad. He had finally accepted his fate, and although he had held out hope to get Filia back for the longest time, it had been weak hope based on his own selfish reasons. With Filia as a girlfriend, he had been unarguably cool. Valgaav had showed him, though, that he was hot stuff in Atlas City– he no longer needed Filia to define his worth. His lips curled slightly into a wry smile. "Okay, now it's your turn. How did it go with Lina?" Zelgadiss crossed his ankles and rubbed them together, a self-destructive way to curb the itching.

"Real good, Zel. I nearly hung up when I got this call from...Xelloss. It faded in and out lots...hard to hear 'cause he was calling from his plane. Then he said he was bringing Lina home so I could meet her at her place. He felt real bad about monopolizing her time. He said other stuff, I forget, but he seemed real nice. Made me feel guilty for having hit the guy."

"He _is_ nice, for the most part," Zelgadiss said. "Especially if you leave Lina out of the mix. Did Lina tell you what she and Xel were up to their on Wolfpack trip?"

"Dangerous. Yeah, she was real excited 'bout that, but I thought Xel shouldn't put her in that situation. She defended him. Said it was her idea and all, but..."

"Well, that's right. Lina got them into the worst stuff. He got them out of it. Did you really punch his face?" Zelgadiss asked as he leaned over to really scratch at his legs.

He had. Gourry went on to tell his friend about his date. Lina had seemed a little quiet, but he figured that she was tired. "I know she has some sorta 'thing' for Xel, but now I don't think it was a serious as I'd thought at first. More of an 'older man aura' thing."

"We were talking, and she called you her boyfriend last night. That may have been the first time I'd heard her say that."

"She did?" Gourry smiled, grateful for that little bit of encouragement. He knew, however, that no matter what Lina said, she was nobody's conquest. "Well, we had a pretty nice time, and then we went out Sunday for a little while before our bowling games. I kinda lost track of the time and was late getting to mine." He told Zel about the game and then Sylphiel walked into the restaurant.

"Um, you keep doing that and you'll start bleeding," Gourry remarked.

"Doing what?" Zelgadiss asked. He caught himself scratching again behind his knee. The skin stung, so he knew he must have already rubbed it raw. "Hi, Sylphiel," he greeted her as she walked in, her usual sweet but simpering expression lighting up at the sight of them. "I don't know what it is, but I have these itches."

"Let me see." Sylphiel seemed no-nonsense about it. "There are lots of bugs this summer because of the recent rains. I've been treating all kinds of rashes and bites this week."

Zelgadiss shyly rolled up a pant leg to expose an ankle. "There's a spot down there."

"Well, looks to me like a bug bite, and a bad one," Gourry offered.

Her fingers were cool and tickled. "It is. Zelly, have you been out hiking in the grass?"

"No, not exactly. Oh, yeah, last night. Lina and I had a body to pick up. It was under trees in tall grass."

"So, Lina might have bites, too." Sylphiel straightened up. "We should drop by and see her. This is a chigger bite. She should be treated so infection doesn't set in."

They paid their bill and hurried to Lina's house. She was barely awake, but she'd managed to get dressed. Still groggy, she said, "What? Oh yeah, _and itchy_. You all came to see me about that? I got bites on my legs and waist that are about to drive me nuts," she groused to Sylphiel.

"Hold on!" Valgaav's voice carried all the way from the outside. He had been visiting Amelia, having lunch at her house when they heard Sylphiel and Gourry's car's pull up. "Don't do anything!"

A short time later, Valgaav had Xel on the phone. "That's right. Both Lina and Zelgadiss have bites. Yeah, I took pictures, but better than that, Sylphiel's here and she has identified them as chigger bites."

Xel was at home, locked in his room pounding the computer keys, researching and trying not to dwell on Lina Inverse. When he was at rest, he brooded about his decision to cut Lina off. He had locked himself in his room and avoided his roommates so that they wouldn't see how upset he was. It was bad enough to suffer self-imposed heartache, but to have his friends know would have been insufferable. He dove into his work for a distraction. "Okay, I'll give our favorite crime scene investigators a call-- you know, Detectives Zolf and Rodimus-- and see if they can meet us out at the crime scene. I'll call you when I learn more." Xel hung up and dialed Detective Zolf.

"Lina?" Valgaav turned back to her. "I need directions to the field where you did that pickup."

"You learn something? Take me and Zelly with you."

"Me, too!" Amelia chimed in. She wanted to be a part of the action for a change.

"I don't have to go back to work for hours," Sylphiel said. "Split shift. You want to come too, don't you Gourry?"

"Amelia, you stay here. I'd rather you not get into the bugs. Same goes for the rest of you." He didn't want Lina, Gourry, and Xel to be within fighting distance of one another, nor did he want Amelia exposed to the kind of work they did, lest it offend her sensibilities. As stuffy as that sounded, it was how he felt toward Amelia. He wanted to shield her from the harshness and cruelty he was exposed to every night, and it amused him that he did. He had never felt protective toward a girl before. There was something about her sweetness that made him want to preserve her innocence as long as possible. He figured that he was demented and that his friends would think so, too, so he covered up as best he could with bluster and lame excuses. Valgaav tried to discourage them all from joining him, but he lost the argument that ensued.

When Xel called, he told Valgaav, "Guess what? Right! Both Detectives Zolf and Rodimus have chigger bites on their waistlines, ankles and behind the knees. We're going to have to look for chiggers over a huge space, so it's fine to bring as many helpers as possible."

Valgaav ended up driving Lina, Zelgadiss, Gourry, Sylphiel, and Amelia to meet Xel. Zolf and Rodimus were already on the scene with another man Valgaav didn't recognize. Xel had preceded them, combing the grass for specimens. He stood up when his friends arrived and smiled with a determined effort.

Zolf introduced everyone, "This is Dr. Tiiba, a well-known entomologist. We are looking for chiggers. If you want to help, listen to his instructions, otherwise, leave."

Everyone stayed to help. Rodimus had laid out a grid of strings covering one hundred and fifty square feet around the area where the body had been found. He sketched a rough outline in his notebook, and numbered each section in the grid. "Okay, I'm assigning each person a spot inside a grid space to search for bugs. Lina, number one..."

"You bet!"

He continued down his list. Xel was number four and far apart from Lina. When everyone had their designation, they all listened while Dr. Tiiba demonstrated how to identify and collect specimens.

"Any questions, just yell." Zolf waved them all to work.

After an hour of testing in each designated place, Dr. Tiiba called them together to compare results. The only place they found chiggers in was a narrow strip near a pine tree under which the woman had been found. Valgaav had been searching there and found several, and several more found him. Valgaav grumbled, "Lucky me."

"So, can they connect her boss from the labs to the scene, too?" Lina asked. "What was that guy's name Zelly?"

"Dr. Halciform," Zelgadiss supplied, "but that was just what I remembered from when I was working there."

"We have investigators checking on that. Hold on, incoming call." Zolf stepped aside and listened to his call in private.

Rodimus explained, "We questioned Dr. Halciform, but he claimed to have seen the woman the last time at work, then he drove straight home. He was very clear about not being outside, and now we have evidence proving that the chiggers cannot be found on the parking lot– only under the tree where the body was found."

"So, you want to know if he has any bites like Miss Lina and Mr. Zelgadiss, right? Isn't it possible that he may not have been bitten, but still have been here?" Amelia asked.

"It's possible, if he wasn't here long. When Xelloss called us earlier, we sent a couple officers and a medical technician to Dr. Halciform's office. That is who Detective Zolf is speaking to."

"Thank you," Zolf was saying as he ended the call and joined the group on the pavement, where they were checking one another's clothes for unwanted bugs. "Well, sure enough, Dr. Halciform has chigger bites. We'll have nurse Sylphiel examine his bite marks and confirm that they are similar to the ones that the rest of us have. This means that he had to be at the crime scene at some point, which doesn't correlate with his testimony. Dr. Halciform is now primary murder suspect, thanks to your lead. Oh, and Miss Sylphiel, you may be called into court to give your expect opinion later."

"I could do that, sure."

"Wow!" Amelia cried out excitedly. "If the suspect is found guilty, then I'll bet that makes it the first time chigger bites ever convicted a man for first-degree murder!"

Everyone chuckled, pleased to have something to laugh about for a change.

**End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 18.**


	19. Hard Love

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 19 - Hard Love -**

"Mirrors and copulation are abominable, because they increase the number of men."

–Jorge Luis Borges (Labyrinths)

* * *

Xelloss had not slept well in days, and when he had, dreams disturbed his slumber. This last one had been awful. He was nude, lying atop Lina, who was also undressed. They kissed deeply, then he pulled back to say, "Lina, open up for me... Let me in. Let me touch you..."

His answer was a cold chill across his back, as if a door opened to receive a blast of arctic air. He twisted his head and body to face the exposure. In the nonsense way of dreams, he saw a figure floating in the distance. The flowing red hair and massive trench coat was familiar. "Gaav?"

Gaav turned at the sound of his voice, even if there had been no sound at all. The big man moved towards Xel, his long overcoat shifting smoothly around his ankles as he walked, giving the eerie impression from a distance that he was several inches off the ground. "So, which one sent you to spy on me? Your mother or your father? Don't bother lying. I'm not joining forces with any of their crowd. I have no desire to live forever. But that is not why I'm here."

"No?" Xelloss wished to be in Lina's arms again, and not face off with Gaav, but she was gone. She had never lain with him that way. It was all an illusion-- Lina was not real, and it was Gaav's apparition that was still present.

"I came to warn you. I will hold you responsible for any harm that may come to Valgaav, my son. If Rezo had any honor, he would have protected his grandson."

"You know who Zelgadiss really is?" Xel asked, but since it was his dream, he received no answer. His dreams had never provided him with answers, only emotional release. "You are not real. None of this is–"Indeed, only the ache inside was real. "Lina, oh gods Lina. What did you _do_ to me?"

* * *

The next day began in the afternoon with the routine duties of life; work would come later that evening. Lina dug through her piles of clothes tossed helter-skelter around her room. "Time to do some wash," she decided. "Nothing's clean. What's this stuff that stinks to high hell...? UGH!"

The sewer water soaked clothes lay where she'd hastily dropped them before their last trip to Wolfpack Island. Partial drying in the summer heat beneath a couple of dirty towels had not improved them, either. "Whee-euw! How much is here? Oh..."

Xel's damp shirt and pants were there, too. Now she remembered removing them from the car and dumping them in her room. She was fingering Xel's shirt, and stopped abruptly. "The sleazy bastard. I oughta just burn these."

But, instead, she added them to the two huge bags of laundry, and left her room, banging the door behind her. She must have made a good deal of noise, because Amelia easily located her doing the wash. "Hi, Miss Lina. Boy, you do have a lot of dirty clothes there. Let me help. Which detergent do you use? Do you add softener? Miss Lina?"

At that moment Lina re-discovered Xel's shirt. When she held it close, she caught a whiff of his cologne through the mustiness. Memories of the exciting time they had spent together flooded her mind. She had climbed in bed with this man twice.

"Miss Lina, you're crying. Oh dear." Amelia hugged her best friend and patted her comfortingly on the back. "Tell me what's the matter."

"I'm not...crying...really..."

It took Amelia a few more minutes to get past Lina' denial, but she did finally convince Lina to tell her what Xel had said, effectively breaking up with her. "But, Miss Lina, I guess I didn't understand how you felt about him. I thought it was Mr. Gourry you liked more."

"I like them both, that's been my problem all along. Not that I have a problem any more. Xel apparently has a girlfriend hidden away on his family's estate on the island. Lain Sherra. Oh, she's real. I met her. She's a pilot and very mature and a complete professional. I could tell she liked him by the way she acted, but he didn't let on at all that they were a couple. Not _then_."

"No! I can't believe that." Amelia's eyes turned glassy, and her stance became fixed in preparation to begin a dramatic speech. "Mr. Xelloss certainly doesn't act like a guy devoted to some distant lover from whom he is separated by time and space." She was getting swept up in the drama as she spoke. "No love-sick pining away with longing, expressive sighs, or anything."

Lina slowly looked over at Amelia. "Ah, actually I've never seen any guy act that way."

"Which means," Amelia carried on, "he doesn't really love her, whoever she is. Maybe it's an arranged thing by that sinister mother of his."

"Er, or not, Amelia..."

"It doesn't matter. What _does _is that you're a fighter, Miss Lina, and so you have to ask yourself: 'Is it Gourry I want or Xel?' which, in turn, leads to the question: 'Is Mr. Xelloss worth fighting for?'"

Lina stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Her friend was inclined to judging things in terms of black and white, while she allowed most things to fall into the "shades of gray" category. "Hell if I know, Amelia. Is any guy worth it? I mean, I go to college in fall, and what would I do with him then? I'd be busy; he'd be working the night shift and sleeping days. Not much of a chance for anything. I know that would happen, too. I haven't had time for Gourry much since I started work. It's kinda sad, because I said I would make time for him, but...we just run out of things to say. He knows fun places to go, but we don't have anything to talk about."

"But with Mr. Xelloss, you have a really exciting time, don't you?"

"Yeah maybe too exciting, but, it doesn't matter. Like I said, he's moved on and I gotta, too." Try as she would, though, Lina couldn't hide her broken heart from her best friend.

* * *

The Gaav residence was also humming with the mundane duties of life. The boys ran the washing machine, vacuumed, and emptied litter boxes as a prelude to their day. At one o'clock, the doorbell joined the drone of the vacuum and the dull thumping of music from a CD. "Hello? Who disturbs our day?" Xel asked as he threw on a shirt, just in case it was someone special.

"Is a Mr. Xelloss Metallium here?" The young delivery man appeared nervous when he greeted at the door by both the intimidating Valgaav holding a mop and Xel with a vacuum hose.

"Yeah."

"Court subpoena for evidence." The man handed an envelope to Xel, then briskly stepped away, disappearing into the bright sun.

Valgaav watched as Xel opened the papers. Zelgadiss turned the sauce on the stove to simmer and joined them from the kitchen. As he read, Xel's eyebrows knotted. "I already **did **this!" he shouted. "Damn. It. All! Atlas City has my DNA on record. Now the Seyruun district wants it!"

"What for?" Zelgadiss asked. He found no reason to get all stirred up over something so unimportant.

"This is about the paternity suit again? I thought that got resolved months ago," Valgaav said.

"Me, too! Looks like she got a change of venue to Seyruun, which is really hardass about indiscretions. Atlas City didn't care who gathered the sample, as long as it was a doctor. Seyruun won't accept the doctor being the patient."

"Okay, so we'll have some doctor Sylphiel trusts do it for you, and me, too. Right? Might as well get my DNA on record this week." Zelgadiss said. "Or, have you changed your mind about needing that?"

"No, I want that," Xel said quickly.

"And you need it because...?" Zelgadiss nudged.

"To do some comparisons with other family members to see if we can locate your birth mother." This was a true, but incomplete, reason.

"I thought you said she was dead."

"Many people are dead. If our aunt is your birth mother, we'll prove that, and some other things..." Xel's voice faded. "Things that should remain secret."

It was clear to Zelgadiss that Xel was withholding information from him, something he had been doing every time he had brought up any subject having to do with upcoming plans. "You're pissing me off with your evasiveness, Xel."

Xelloss ignored the comment. First he was dreaming of Lina, and now this. It made him tense and uncomfortable. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had to get control over himself first, then his life. Make plans for the day, he told himself. Arranging events was his way of calming down. With his composure somewhat restored, Xel said, "I collected hair with follicles from a brush in Rezo's bathroom. Do you think we could get some from both your parents at their house? You still have keys to it, or did they rent it out when they left?"

"What? Hairbrushes?" Zelgadiss changed mental gears again. "I have the key to a storage locker where they packed up what they didn't move or sell. We have time to take a look if we go now. But first," he said, standing defiantly and blocking Xel's path to the door, "Tell me why."

"Because, I want to find out why they messed with your birth certificate, kept your mother a secret-- if that's true, of course– and why you have been kept a secret relation. That's what I need the DNA for, to trace your lineage. That's it, the truth." Indeed, what Xel had just said was dangerously close to revealing his entire rationale.

"This hasn't anything to do with the sleuthing you've been doing on Wolfpack Island?"

"I honestly don't know the connection, if any, but Rezo is hiding several skeletons in his closet, and it's time to bring them out, don't you think?" Xel's eyes twinkled with anticipation.

"Fine." Zelgadiss picked up the phone. "You're not fooling me one bit. Keep your damned secrets. In the meantime, I'll see if Sylphiel can help us out, and we'll stop at the storage place after the hospital. Oh, I had a thought. My grandfather's DNA may be on the Zanaffar database. They keep complete records of every employee to rule out possible personal contaminants."

"That will come in handy. I'll look that up. Not yours, though?"

"No, not mine. I hadn't been there long enough, and besides, I was still mopping floors and emptying wastebaskets."

"Too bad."

"That's my life. Anyway, I'll call Sylphiel now. Be back in a minute."

"Valgaav, you coming with us?" Xel asked as he jammed the vacuum cleaner into the hall closet.

"No, I'm going over to see Amelia." He dried his hands on a towel. "I'll be back to eat Zelgadiss' cooking here before work, okay?"

"Have fun with Little Miss Spunky."

Valgaav looked his cousin over carefully, guessed what was still irking him, and teased him some. "You know where you made your mistake with _that _girl, don't you?"

Xel dipped his head and crumpled up the subpoena. "What, like sleeping with her in the first place? Sure, I know that," he answered sharply.

"_After_ that," Valgaav smiled. "You shouldn't have given her the money. Now, whenever she needs some dough, she'll find some way to track you down. It's all about extorting money from you, you've figured that out, haven't you? You know who the real father is?"

"The guy she screwed when she was 'so in love' with me? Yeah, he skipped town, no job, no nothing."

"So you _do_ have a heart!" Valgaav laughed as he located his car keys. "The secret is out."

"I wish I didn't," Xel muttered. "I wish I could rip it out."

"Well, stop treating every girl you meet in a sexual way and maybe you'll want to keep your heart. You're capable of nurturing more honest, genuine relationships, probably." Valgaav gave his cousin one last hard look, then left him to brood.

Zelgadiss marched back into the front room as Valgaav disappeared out the door. "Okay, Sylphiel has it all worked out. I needed a check-up too, so I guess I'll need to stay a little longer. That okay with you?"

"Yeah, if I have all the samples, I can run them over to the lab to start the DNA testing. We can meet in the lobby."

"Yeah, and then I think found the key to a storage locker where some of my folks' stuff is kept. It won't take long if we both search for hairbrushes."

"Good idea. Simple is best."

* * *

"Hi Zelly," Sylphiel greeted him in a small hospital waiting room, her soft green eyes warm and beckoning.

Zelgadiss was pleased to see her. She never placed demands on him, and, since the accident, he associated her with pain relief and with having a sympathetic ear. "Hi, Sylphiel."

"Hi, Xel. If you both come with me, I'll draw some blood. Did you want to take it up to the lab yourself?" she asked Xel.

"Yes," Xel watched as she carefully removed a sample of his blood and labeled it. She withdrew a longer, sharper needle. "What is that for?"

She smiled faintly as her eyes flickered across Zelgadiss' face. "I found these penetrate his skin far better than your ordinary needles. Now, make a fist and hold still..."

Xelloss watched the proceedings with interest. Sylphiel was a lovely girl who had never so much as blinked at him, which struck him as odd because every girl he'd ever met fell for him. Filia obviously adored him, but didn't know how to express it except in violent outbursts and insults, but she was attracted just the same. Amelia liked him, but she was too besotted with his cousin Valgaav to have much left over for him. Lina, well, she clearly a special case, and he didn't want to consider her with the others. But Sylphiel, she had no reason any longer to ignore him, unless... Her eyes certainly lingered upon his blue friend longer than necessary. Could it be that she liked the strange, unusual, and afflicted, Xel wondered?

"Oh, Xel, hope you brought a good book to read while you wait. Zelly's check up will take awhile."

"No problem. I'll catch up with you in an hour or so," Xelloss said, taking the two blood samples, then disappeared the moment Zelgadiss turned his back.

"I was about to call you to remind you about your check up, and then you called me. Um, follow me, please." She leaned into him, whispering, "And the DNA sample... Did that birth certificate I found have something to do with this?"

"Yes, partially," he said curtly. He didn't want to discuss his problems. "Where are we? This doesn't look like your ordinary hospital room."

"It's not. The doctor let me have this private outpatient room. It's really nice; more like home, I think. I hoped it would make you feel more comfortable." She wet her lips, but she wasn't nervous. She was anticipating Zel's mood changes.

"Yeah, thanks." The table looked more like a bed; there were curtains over the window and wallpaper. A wood cabinet and desk, which would have looked at home in his room back home, held the medical supplies. "So should I take off my shirt or...something?"

Suddenly, it occurred to him that she might ask him to remove all his clothes. He wasn't sure whether he could do that, even if it was behind a screen. His eyes were downcast, unable to meet hers.

"No, I'll do that."

Zel's eyes shot up, his mouth agape. "Wha...?" His question left unasked as cool fingers slid beneath his shirt.

Sylphiel's whisper tickled his ear. "This skin feels fine, but I need to undress you completely. Arms up!"

He didn't know what to say. "Um..." He allowed her to strip off his t-shirt.

"Go ahead and sit on the examination table." As he did, she moved between his legs, running her finger tips over his exposed skin. "These wounds have healed beautifully.

His nipples hardened under her ministrations, eliciting a gasp from his lips. "Oh, Sssyl..." He was certain this was not her usual bedside manner when she worked.

"Hmmm? Your back, yes. I should check that, too." She smiled slyly and leaned forward, crushing her breasts against his chest and wrapping her slender arms around him. "Nice back."

Zelgadiss' shock had worn off. He embraced her, burying his face in her hair. He was a man beneath his alien body, after all. "Sylphiel..." His hair had once been long and dark, but hers was heavier, crow's-back black, and straight. It felt cool, but the rest of her was warm and soft and wonderful. With one hand embedded in her hair, he gently turned her head until their lips touched.

Her kiss deepened with enthusiasm. She had liked the old Zel, but back then she had been shy and retreating, while he had seemed arrogant and unreachable. Gourry was her thoughtful, dutiful boyfriend, although they had been too much alike; their romance lacked fire. While she wondered if being with Zelgadiss would be more exciting, she wouldn't think of deserting a sure thing, or of hurting her Gourry-dear.

She had watched as Amelia and Lina befriended Zelgadiss. She had been certain that the bubbly and cute Amelia would attract him, but noticed that it was Lina who had finally caught his eye. She hadn't understood what had caused Zel to back off and give up on Lina.

She had had no idea that it was for her own boyfriend's benefit that Zelgadiss hadn't tried to date Lina– not until Gourry broke off with her. Gourry had been kind and honest with her. He told her first, before approaching Lina with his feelings. He wanted to remain friends, like they had always been, but "Lina was just special somehow," he had said. When she carefully considered their situation, Sylphiel agreed that they'd been drifting apart. Still, it had stung her pride and left her feeling empty.

When Mr. Tadaaki had asked her to lunch the next week, she accepted. Gourry's leaving had left a void in her heart, which she needed to fill with _somebody_. Tadaaki was an older man, but also good-looking, very polite, and kind. His presence had been a consolation to her ego, even as she began longing for a boy closer to her own age.

Again, her thoughts had roved and settled onto Zelgadiss, who was so cute and smart. "If only he'd notice me!" Sylphiel had wished.

She had even been about to take her chances asking Zel out when Filia had stepped in. Sylphiel had known that she couldn't compete with Filia; not with her beauty, figure, or popularity. Then Tadaaki had died, and she discovered that he'd been a married man. She had been reeling from that knowledge when Zelgadiss was nearly killed in the accident at work.

Sylphiel had always loved her volunteer work at the hospital, but when circumstances suddenly had put Zelgadiss under her care, she realized her vocation. Her interest in healing could become a rewarding occupation. His terrible misfortune had left him disfigured, gloomy, and angry. He had become a changed young man, but unknowingly he stirred more than just Sylphiel's sympathy. She had seen his potential. She appointed herself his caretaker, the one to make him well and whole again, and that included encouraging his self-confidence, which was mixed up in what she was up to at the moment.

Best of all, he wanted her, too. Never had anything felt so good. Why this wonder of a girl wanted to touch his blue scarred skin, or run her fingers through his silver, wiry hair, he couldn't fathom. Zelgadiss had thought Sylphiel was always so refined; she was a dutiful priest's daughter, and rather tall. But that was in the past, in high school. Now he was the taller one, and she was so lovely and sexy at the same time.

Sylphiel had unbuttoned her uniform blouse and drew one of his hands underneath. It trembled as he lightly fondled one of her breasts. Zelgadiss' heart pounded so hard he was certain she could hear it. He had never touched a living girl so intimately, and he was afraid of passing out from the excitement. "You're so beautiful," he murmured. "I never imagined this." He didn't explain which 'this' he meant, but she just nodded in understanding. She hadn't either.

"You're so special to me, Zelly. I-I'm not usually like this..."

"I know," he muttered, totally contented to have her make the first moves.

When she unzipped his pants, telling him that it was time to completely disrobe, Zelgadiss was positive that he was the luckiest guy ever born.

* * *

Valgaav and Amelia were sitting at her kitchen table, her sister flitting in and out every so often, letting them know that they were not alone.

Valgaav sipped at his soda stiffly.

Amelia frowned slightly, waiting for her sister to leave them alone before asking, "When was the last time you cried?"

He thought a moment. "I did as a kid, but not lately. I don't know, why?"

"Miss Lina hardly ever cries. Almost never, but today she was holding a shirt of Mr. Xelloss' and crying. Not a lot, but some, which is lots for her."

Valgaav closed his eyes and held back his thoughts, _not again_. He scanned for Nahga's presence, and then asked, "So, has Lina told you anything about her trip with Xel?"

"A little," Amelia said. "I know she'd not going anywhere with him again."

"Yeah, I guess I had something to do with that. She's better off with that Gourry dude, anyway."

"You? What could you have to do with Mr. Xelloss having a steady girlfriend back on Wolfpack Island?"

"Steady girlfriend? Xel? Not likely. What gave you that idea?"

"You tell me what you did to interfere first."

He could sense Amelia's disapproval already. He joggled his glass, watching the ice rearrange itself, and waited for Nahga to pour herself a cup of tea and leave. "I didn't do anything. I just reminded Xel that he was ten years older than Lina, and that, like it or not, he had a responsibility to treat her better than usual, and if he was really a man, he'd leave her to go back to her boyfriend. Older girls, well, they might be able to guess his moves, but Lina's just a kid in most ways. I mean, if he'd really cared for her, he would be fighting for her still. As it is, he dropped her, right?"

"No, not right, Mr. Valgaav. Not right at all. Miss Lina was falling in love with him, and you don't know Miss Lina. She's tough. She takes care of herself and doesn't let anyone push her around. Mr. Xelloss' moves would never be a match for Miss Lina's! But that's all water under the bridge, because he does have a girlfriend, whether you know about her or not. Mr. Xelloss told Miss Lina that his girlfriend's name was Lain Sherra."

"Lain... Who? You mean Sherra Lain Grauscherra, our cousin? She is a year older than Xel; a pilot who lives on Wolfpack Island. I don't know what else she does there. Nice lady, but definitely not Xel's girlfriend."

"Cousin? You're sure? Oh, of course you are, I'm sorry. But why would he have told her a thing like that?"

"A lie? Because he couldn't tell her he felt he was too old for her, not to her face. That would be like saying he wasn't good enough for her. He's neither that generous nor that honest."

"Coward. It's wrong to lie to her that way. He should have told her what was on his mind, and let Miss Lina decide if he was too old for her. That's terrible to make her think she never meant anything to him that way."

"Like I told you, Xel's not especially considerate of other people's feelings. For all I know, he's got another girlfriend already, but her name's not Lain Sherra." Valgaav caught Amelia's eyes. She looked troubled, but about the wrong people, he felt. "Here's what I think, Amelia. Xel and Lina are mismatched, and, yet, probably deserve each other. As much as Xel's a friend of mine and Lina a friend of yours, it is _their_ business to work out. Now, I'd like to drop them and talk about, well, just about anything else. That okay with you?"

She smiled. "Yes."

He looked over his shoulder for a more private place to talk, but didn't know the house well enough to suggest a room. "Would you like to take a walk?"

Delighted at his suggestion, Amelia said with gusto, "You bet. The 24-Hour has a pineapple-coconut icy drink I just love. It's at the big intersection."

"I know the one. Sure, I'll buy you a drink." He took her hand, furthering her joy, and led the way out of the house and down the street. "Why do you call it that? The place has a name."

"When you see the sign, you'll know. The '24 HOUR' part is huge. It is all you can see anymore. The name lost its light bulb five years ago, and they never replaced it because a robin builds a nest there every year."

"The '24-Hour', eh? Cool."

* * *

Xel moved along the crowded hospital corridor looking for a familiar face. He had kept in contact with a few of his peers, one of which he hoped would be working today in Seyruun. "Gene!"

"Xelloss? Of course it is! What brings you to the hospital? Nothing serious, I hope, or have you reconsidered going for your surgery MD?" Gene grinned in a friendly way. The two men had graduated together from medical school, each to his own chosen profession.

"No, I'm happy with the dead. You still delivering babies?"

"Last year of it. I'll be doing just GYN after this winter. Malpractice insurance is driving me out."

Xelloss nodded. "I understand the rates are terrible and climbing each year."

"Yeah, it's too bad, too. I like bringing those little lives into the world as much as you like dealing with the dead, I assume."

"My patients rarely have cause to file suit."

Gene shuffled uncomfortably. There was something about Xel that gave him a creepy, uneasy feeling. He wanted to walk away, but he was too polite to do that without a little more small talk and a smooth exit. "So, what's up? You married, yet? Kids?"

"Ah, no and definitely no."

"Still the consummate playboy, I see. Well, you'll tire of it eventually and want to settle down. Like me– I have two now, boy and girl, and Evie's pregnant with number three. It's the best, having a family."

"You look great, Gene, so it must suit you. I'm sure I'll find the right lady one of these days. So, I have some paperwork to do, and these," Xel held up the blood samples as a visual cue, "to get up to the lab. Is there an office I could use for an hour or so?"

"Yeah, sure, you can have mine. Follow me." Gene led Xel through the 'No Admittance' doors, past closed doors labeled with multiple names. He stopped at one with his name and one other doctor's name posted outside. "I share my office with Ashad, 'member him? Tall, dark, internal medicine?"

Xel nodded, although he only vaguely recalled the other guy. "Wasn't he in the class before us?"

"That's right. Well, good to see you. I have some patients to check in on and a delivery in an hour, so I have to rush off. Just close the door behind you; it locks automatically."

"Okay. It was good to see you, and thanks for the office." Xel remained standing until Gene had left and closed the door. As soon as he was gone, Xel quickly settled into the comfortable chair and turned on the computer. It immediately came up in the Unified Medical Entry System all personnel were required to use to file examination reports, test results, surgery records, patient charges, and even submit prescriptions. Xel smiled. This was _so_ handy for what he needed to do.

Using the hospital letterhead, he sent a request to Zelgadiss' parents for a blood sample. He told them about their son's 'crisis state' and a need for a cure. Dr. Gene's signature was automatically placed on the letter, but before sending it, Xel replaced the e-mail return address with one of his own hidden-identity accounts.

He still had time to kill, so he looked up Zelgadiss' records, scanning them out of curiosity. He was amazed that his friend had survived the serious burns, but was disturbed by how little investigation had gone into correcting the blue skin condition and dramatic hair change.

Next, he looked up the records for the blood samples Sylphiel had recently entered. It was a minor task to request both men's results to be sent to the mortuary's e-mail address, as well as having his alone sent to his lawyer. Satisfied with his activity for the afternoon, Xel shut down the computer, scribbled a quick 'thank you' note to his friend Gene, and then left the office to drop off the vials at the lab.

Fifteen minutes later, Xel was patiently waiting for Zelgadiss to complete his physical examination. He turned another page of 'Outdoor Sportsman' magazine, but he wasn't reading it. He was still thinking about Zelgadiss and everything he had suffered lately. The chemical accident caused extensive damage to his friend's skin, including his genital region, according to the reports he has scanned. Xel wondered if that meant Zelgadiss couldn't perform sexually, and suddenly he felt extreme and sincere sympathy for him. What would he do if it had happened to him? Xelloss wondered if he could live life so disfigured. Possibly. How about if sex was impossible? At first he thought, emphatically, that the answer was no, but after further consideration, Xel decided that he would find a way, somehow. He decided that if Zelgadiss would accept his help, he would find him a cure, somehow, sometime. No man should live life so impaired.

"We'd better get a move on if we're going to find those hair samples, or would you rather read about fly fishing for sport?"

"Fishing while flying? Never heard of it," Xel said as he tossed the magazine to the side, and bounced out of his chair.

"Nor has anyone else. You were reading an article on sport fishing, which in the case of that issue was focusing on 'fly fishing'." Zelgadiss turned up the corner of his mouth in a half smile.

"It was? How did you know that? Are you hiding secret skills from me, like being a speed distance reader?"

"I might be, but not in this case. I read the previous ten issues of that magazine during my incarceration here earlier this summer. I ran out of things to read; what can I say?"

Xel slapped him on the shoulder and chuckled quietly on their way out to his car. Zelgadiss impressed him with his wry wit and humor as well as his survival powers. "New CD," Xel said as he turned up the volume and whipped the car out of the parking lot. The drive to the storage locker took another fifteen minutes, during which they listened to a CD. Zelgadiss hummed to it, which Xel took to mean that the physical had gone well. Good. Maybe he wouldn't have to help find a cure, after all. Perhaps the damage would undo itself.

"You seem pretty relaxed," Xel told Zelgadiss as he parked in front of his family's storage locker.

"I am," he said with a shy smile, which kept returning to his face no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Without a word of explanation for his high spirits, Zelgadiss pulled the lock off the door and rolled back the storage locker door. "I'll check the boxes on the left, you start on the right."

Xel slit the packing tape and opened the first box. He was thankful for the turnabout in Zelgadiss' mood, and so he didn't press for details. "Like opening presents. Oooh, books. No, thanks." While checking other boxes, he glanced back at his friend a couple times. Zelgadiss was whistling a tune.

"You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think you just got lucky back there at the hospital," Xel chuckled.

The whistling stopped, and the heat of embarrassment rushed to Zelgadiss' face. Xel raised his head slowly, his eyes widening. "No way."

"It's really none of your business..." Zelgadiss muttered, but he was dying to tell him.

"During your check up? Really? Sylphiel? That's really...something. I mean it! I mean, I figured she was a closet lesbian or something the way she glossed over me, but it was _you_ she had the hots for. That makes sense now. Sex with your nurse, Zelgadiss." He clapped him on the shoulder by way of congratulations. "Well done."

"I hadn't expected it. She's not that kind of girl, you know. Not with just anybody! But she picked me. I didn't even know she liked me that way. Anyway, we're going out tomorrow." He met Xel's eyes', his self-confidence wavering. "She's always been really nice, but she's beautiful, isn't she?"

Xelloss was about to quip something along the lines of, "what does it matter if she puts out?" but reconsidered. Zelgadiss was a good kid, a nice guy, and this had to be the first he'd ever fooled around with a girl since his accident, probably ever. Xelloss had a change of heart, remembering what he had thought about in the waiting room. Instead of being discouraging and destructive, he decided to build up Zel's confidence. "Yes, she is. I'd date her if I could. You're one lucky guy, for sure."

Zelgadiss blushed again. "Thanks. I think so, too."

That was too much warm-fuzzy-feeling crap for the two young men. They both turned back to their work without another word. Minutes ticked by, and then Zelgadiss cleared his throat. "Ah, I've found old kitchen stuff. I hope they saved something useful. So, ah, tell me, what is the difference between DNA analysis on hair and on blood?"

"Nuclear DNA comes from blood and tissue. Mitochondrial DNA is collected from hair and bone, and doesn't tattle on its owner's gender. Nuclear DNA testing is, however, the preferred method of DNA testing for identification purposes. It's basically the same as the analysis carried out for paternity testing, actually. Your DNA profile, or that of the questionable remains, is compared with the profiles of known relatives, which is why we need to contact relatives to provide a small blood samples for comparison. This will involve testing your mother and father to determine whether you really are a child of those parents, Rezo to see who he is related to, and my aunt, who may be your birth mother. If there is a match between the DNA profile of the you with the deceased or those of your 'real' the parents then it is likely that an identification can be made. If you had brothers and sisters, they could also be compared."

"So, why are we collecting hair, then, if it's not very useful?"

"It's useful, just not the best. It's our back up in case my plans don't work out."

"Plans? What plans?"

"I sent an official looking request to your parents, whose names and address were on your records in the hospital, if you were going to ask how I knew that information. I wrote that a treatment for your condition was under investigation, and we needed a blood sample. I'm hoping they both send me the samples, but if they don't we'll have to rely on what we find here. Besides, a complete hair, yanked out with the root material clinging to it might have enough tissue for nuclear testing."

"How about the hair you collected at my grandfather's house?"

"I didn't know about the DNA testing at the labs, but it will be backup for that, too. Can't be too careful or have too much information."

* * *

Valgaav couldn't remember ever feeling so care-free and cheerful before. Amelia lifted his spirits in an entirely new way each time he visited her. Nothing seemed hopeless; solutions to every problem were in sight. And in her world, there were no dead bodies waiting in the cooler.

"So, is it good?" he asked.

"Ummm, you bet. Would you like a taste?" Amelia offered him her tall drink.

He sucked at the straw and shrugged. "Not bad. Kinda sweet for me, but it's cold on a hot day like today." His narrow golden eyes came to rest on her lips, swollen slightly from the cold drink. They rose slowly to meet her wide gray-blue eyes. She shivered. "See? You'll get brain-freeze if you drink that stuff too fast. Come 'ere."

He perched himself on a low wall in the shade of the tree and pulled Amelia onto his lap. He liked kissing and holding Amelia. She was very full-figured, making her soft and terribly exciting to imagine fondling alone sometime. She didn't hold back, but put her all into kissing. French kissing was something new for her, though. Her eyelashes brushed his face, tickling him. "You're staring at me. Something wrong?" he asked.

"N-no, not really. I wasn't expecting you to do...that, I guess."

He thought her blush was adorable and her innocence almost too much for his self control. When he lowered his eyes, he could see the lace trim on her bra and sufficient flesh to put his urges into overdrive. His mind was going wild with sexual imaginings. "Do what? This?"

Oh, he knew what she meant; he was enjoying his role as teacher. He ran his tongue along her lower lip, and then pushed gently until he met with her teeth. When she started to speak, opening her mouth, he took the opportunity offered to slide in his tongue. His hands held her firmly in place as he tickled her tongue with his, begging it to come out and play. She squirmed, arousing him further until he ended the kiss with a gentle suck of her lower lip. "Um, you are something else, Amelia. It's a good thing your daddy keeps you under guard."

She giggled with delight. She liked the way this older boy flirted with her and made her feel so desirable and womanly. "Oh, he likes you lots, from meeting you and your dad at bowling and all. You're serious, a student with potential, and a good worker. He admires your dad, too."

"I guess we have that in common, don't we? We both love our fathers, and want to please them," Valgaav said as he tamed his inflamed libido with thoughts of frowning fathers.

"That's just one of the things I like about you, Mr. Valgaav. Daddy doesn't have to worry when I'm with you."

Valgaav shook his head, and gave her a tight hug. "Oh, that's not true, Amelia. He should be very worried. You are _very_ tantalizing."

She looked down, blushing. "I'm not a tease."

"No, you're right, you're not. I meant that you make me want you." His eyes flashed, but he was smiling. "And I love you."

"Oh!" Amelia was caught off guard by his declaration. "Y-you do?"

"Yeah, I do. I just figured that out-- why I feel the way I do around you, why I want to be with you all the time. Nobody's ever made me feel this way. Nothing like this." He used a long, tanned finger to tilt up her chin. "I mean it. I'm serious here, Amelia."

"I love you, too," she said. "Oooh, that's feels so good to say, doesn't it? I love you, Mister..."

"Valgaav or Val, if you want, but no 'mister' anything any more, okay?"

"Oh, yes, Valgaav. Val-gaav... Val...Valgaav. I think Valgaav will be best. Let me try that again, then. I love you, Valgaav. There, how did that sound?"

"Like the best thing I've ever heard. Gods, Amelia, I love you so much..." he pressed his lips to hers, and shared a moment of bliss.

"You know, I don't know that much about you," Amelia said after catching her breath.

"You're right. I keep my past mostly to myself, but I think you should know a few things." He took a deep breath and adjusted Amelia's position on his lap.

"Am I getting too heavy? I can get down..."

"No way," he chuckled deep in his throat. "I'm never letting you get away now that I have you in my clutches." He growled like a lion and pretended to bite her neck playfully.

She giggled more and pushed him away, enjoying the fun, until an unwelcome, familiar laugh interrupted them.

"Oh, ho, ho, ho, hoooooo! Who have we here? Ohhhh, if it isn't my little sister making out behind the Jiffy Market with my ex-boyfriend. How cozy. Wouldn't daddy like to know about this?"

Amelia hopped to the ground with Valgaav slowly rising to stand by her side, towering over both sisters. "That would be unwise," he said. "But I've got nothing to hide, and she's done nothing wrong, so go tattle all you like, Nahga– won't change the way things are between us now."

"We'll see how long it lasts," Nahga snapped back, flushed with anger, and then spun on her heel and left.

"I'd better get you home before she starts something with your dad," Valgaav said.

"I guess so, but I really enjoyed this time together, and nothing can keep us apart, no matter what."

* * *

By evening, Lina, Valgaav, Zelgadiss, and Xelloss were reunited in the morgue, working. The tension was thick, threatening to blow them apart, but Zelgadiss and Valgaav had their own personal triumphs of the day, making them potent enough to endure just about anything.

"We always do the thoracic cavity embalming right after we're finished with the arterial injection of embalming fluid," Valgaav explained to Zelgadiss as they completed the first task of the night.

Zelgadiss nodded in understanding while he removed the tubes and sealed the opened jar of formalin. "I remember. It hasn't been that long."

"The chest looks pretty caved in on that one," Lina noted. She eyed the proceedings critically, because she was bored, waiting for a pick up call, and avoiding Xel's presence, the last not actually being possible.

Valgaav ignored Lina, which he was good at by now, and continued speaking directly to Zelgadiss. Valgaav hadn't wanted Lina to be hired, he hadn't wanted the pick-up business she had been employed to do, and, in fact, he disapproved, secretly of course, of women working in the morgue business on principle, something he'd learned from his father. Gaav felt it was a man's job, but to avoid Seyruun discrimination lawsuits, he hired Eris and, later, Lina. Valgaav hadn't been fond of Lina to start with, and had watched as she became a problem for his cousin. He was concerned, feeling that she was about to destroy the camaraderie the three young men had established in the morgue. "Oh, yeah? Feels like we've been gone weeks. Well, what you're looking for now, and what we need to reorder more of, is the _approved _cavity filler..."

"I know..." Zelgadiss sighed. "I reordered it last Monday. It even came in, but the day shift just leaves the bags on the storage locker. They can't be bothered with filling the bin in here, the lazy cretins."

"Note the emphasis Val placed on the word _approved_ cavity filler," Xel said from across the room. "I told him how on Wolfpack we packed bodies using kitty litter."

"That was clean, never-used kitty litter, I hope," Lina muttered.

Not wanting the conversation to escalate into a fight, Valgaav returned to his instructions. "Now, re-aspirate the lungs, and then the windpipe gets corked. All the exterior openings have got to be corked off."

"I can understand sealing them. Why not just super-glue them shut?" Zelgadiss asked.

"When the remains are available for viewing, the day staff has to check the abdominal and thoracic regions for any signs of bloating caused by gaseous buildup. If there's some distention, pressure is relieved by opening anal vent, thus the removable cork."

"That is done in the slumber room, of course, when no one is looking," Xel said with a chuckle. As miserable as he was having ended his relationship with Lina, he was at the same time reveling in her presence. There was something about her which drew him close and fed his hidden needs. She was obviously uncomfortable with him, and that made him want her attention all the more.

Lina looked at him askance. "No kidding..."

The frugal attention she was willing to feed him fueled his ego sufficiently for him to continue. "Which reminds me of another fun tale from my formative years. This would have been at one of my father's mainland mortuaries, where I had been starting out dressing the dead before showings. I remember dressing this young guy, old to me at the time, but probably mid twenties or so. Anyway, I had dressed him in what was his first suit and tie, and felt proud of how he'd turned out. I sat out with the family, at the back of the room during the funeral service just to witness the parent's joy in his appearance. Then, only minutes after the funeral services ended, when the lid was about to be lifted for viewing– everyone was lining up, and I was so excited-- the body caught fire inside the closed coffin. There was smoke shooting out of the cracks."

"You're kidding, right?" Lina wasn't sure whether to believe his stories anymore or not.

"No, it really happened," Xel insisted.

"It's true, at least, I've heard it can happen," Valgaav said. "Embalming fluids can spontaneously combust."

"Really?" Zelgadiss straightened, and glared at the bottle closest to him as if it might explode any second.

"It scarred me deeply," Xel uttered with a protracted sigh. "All that trouble I'd gone to, and no one ever noticed. The guy had looked very nice, too, better than when he'd been alive. Drug addict, under-nourished, ill, scruffy, when he'd come in."

He was talking mostly to himself, but Lina was listening and noticed the deep-seated sadness underlying his admission. Before she started to feel sorry for him, though, her attention was averted by the sound of the telephone.

Further comment was shelved, while Lina grabbed the receiver. "Rubyeye Mortuary and Funeral Home, Lina speaking. May I help you? We certainly do make pickups at this time of night. Riverbend Nursing Home on Sixth and River Road. Got it. I'll be right there. Thanks."

She pulled on her nicer-looking jacket and checked her kit for clean sheets and gloves. "After collecting bodies from tubs, cars, and fields in the dark, a fresh one out of a room oughta be a cinch."

"It'll take longer than you think," Valgaav told her. "Take time to talk to the other residents who might be up and see you. They are curious and frightened, because they all know that someday they'll be leaving the same way. It doesn't hurt to comfort a friend of the deceased who has absolutely nothing better to do but take up your time. If we get another call while you're gone, I'll call your cell phone."

"Talk to the residents. Gotcha! Future business, too. Okay, I can do this myself, Zelly; I won't be needing you. Stay here and finish your job." Lina flitted out. She was happy to go it alone, once in a while, particularly if doing so would prevent her from having to interact closely with Xel. It was all she could do to guard against Xel's intrusive personality. She was fighting her heart, which was being disloyal to her and grieving over him all the time. Seeing him each night at work was more of a problem than she wanted to face, because it meant having to accept the fact that she was in love, and that he wasn't.

Lina arrived at the nursing home in fifteen minutes and rang the bell at the locked main door. "I'm Lina from the Rubyeye Mortuary and Funeral Home."

"Why yes, you must be here for Room 136, right down the hall. I'll send someone to give you a hand."

"Thanks," Lina smiled, and pushed her cot down the hall. "Nursing homes sure aren't as particular about releasing a deceased to me as everyone else has been. No paperwork or ID check. I guess they don't want a body on hand one minute longer than necessary," she thought to herself.

Lina discovered, however, that the nursing home presented a different set of challenges for her novice removal team of one. She pushed her rolling cot directly to the patient's room, attracting a murmuring gathering of patients. It would have been worse during the day, when many more residents would have been out-and-about watching her. As it was, she was surrounded by a small crowd of ten or more onlookers.

The gentle words the dead woman's friends passed on to her resting form touched Lina's heart. How sad it was to die without family and where your friends would be soon to follow you. Lina stepped aside to let them pay their respects while deciding how she would man-handle the poor thing onto the cot without appearing disrespectful.

"Would you like a hand getting Mrs. Harper off the bed?" asked a young man who was an employee of the home. "My name's Paul."

"Sure, thanks, ah...Paul." Intensely aware of her audience, Lina wrapped the sheet more carefully and struggled to move the body as if it were only a woman asleep and not a heavy bag of beans. Lina tightened the straps, which held the body snugly to the cot, and adjusted the sheet, folding it neatly and tucking it under the dead woman's chin. She tilted the cot and left the face exposed, as if the deceased were going to the hospital. "Okay, Mrs. Harper," she said to the body in a light voice. "Time to go."

"Bye, Mary," one gentleman whispered as Lina passed by. He shuffled his walker around, falling in behind the cot. Others joined in, making a parade of metal and flesh legs to escort Mrs. Harper on her last excursion out of the home. Many residents talked to the deceased on her trip to the van. To Lina, that trip seemed like a mile! She was relieved to shut the door and leave the suffering folks behind.

"That was a nice thing you did back there, Miss Lina," Paul told her. "Everyone will want you to take care of their delivery in the future."

"Well, thanks for the hand Paul, and for the compliment. Take care." She tossed him a smile and drove off, pleased to have found the balance between being a good person and making the boss angry by lingering too long. If only she could balance her love life so easily.

Meanwhile, Valgaav had enlisted Xel's' expertise to demonstrate mouth sealing techniques to Zelgadiss. Xel was pleased to have something to do to take his mind off Lina's departure, and he was particularly adept at the process. "The mouth of the deceased is the focal point when folks view the remains in the casket. In fact, the mouth's expression determines how the relatives of the deceased relate to the body, whether they accept it as their lost one or not. So, it's our job to make them look natural. To do that the mouth is sutured shut and thoroughly waxed. Watch me."

"No Superglue?" Zelgadiss asked with his wry smile in place.

Xel leveled his eyes at Zelgadiss' and sneered. "No dickhead, not in this mortuary, but there are a few lazy "progressive" embalmers who do. I swear by a needle and catgut. Like this." Xel did a partial line of stitches, then let Zelgadiss finish. "You're less of a twit when you're all moody, you know.

"Too, bad," Zelgadiss muttered as he stood back to let Xel check out his stitches.

"Okay, that's pretty good. Next, you apply a coating of softened wax to both the upper and lower lip so they don't dry out and start cracking and flaking."

"Looks natural," Zelgadiss commented.

"That's the idea."

"You had a different introduction to morgue work than Valgaav, and me, certainly."

Xel laughed aloud. "Ha! No kidding! All kinds of stuff went on at my mom's place, because no one cared about crooks and crazies. There was this one morgue attendant at the Wolfpack complex who routinely extracted a variety of organs from corpses without permission from the families of the deceased, and then he sold the parts to researchers. Oh, I have proof it's still going on! I discovered, while digging through their records last month, that the morgue sold pituitary glands collected over the past year for about 50 cents each to fund last year's staff Solstice party."

Both Valgaav and Zelgadiss started laughing. It wasn't all that funny, but they were in good moods that night. They turned at the outer door opened.

"What's so funny?" Lina asked as she rolled her cot toward the cold storage locker. Noticing that Valgaav was looking her way expectantly, she added, "Nothing mysterious here, just an old lady. She can keep."

"Xel was telling a story," Zelgadiss said through a chuckle.

Further discussion was cut short by a cry for help, as a mortuary employee rushed into the autopsy room. "Oh, thank the gods somebody is here. Valgaav, it's you—great! What a relief! Come quickly. We have the wrong body for the night funeral service!"

End, Graveyard Shift Chapter 19


	20. Working Relationships

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 20 -Working Relationships** -

"Did you hear about the two blood corpuscles named Romeo and Juliet?

They loved in vein."

* * *

The public funeral parlor rooms and the autopsy rooms were separated by a hall, offices, doors, and a stringent policy. The clients were never to know what occurred beyond those doors. Lines of propriety partitioned one world from the other, and rarely were the lines crossed. But when they were, it could only mean a serious breach had occurred in the fabric of space and time, or so Valgaav believed.

Valgaav's smile faded fast. "What's the problem?"

The young assistant to the night funeral parlor manager was beside himself. "The funeral is about to begin and the widow says it's the wrong body, er, man in the casket!"

"Terrific," Valgaav growled and stormed out into the hallway separating the morgue lab from the public places and offices. "I hate these night services. Things always get screwed up, and there's no one to take care of it but me." He continued grumbling until he reached the outer door. The night parlor manager should be fired, he thought, and he decided to talk to his father about it in the morning.

Xel, Zelgadiss, and Lina followed behind. It didn't take long for them to figure out what the trouble was. Indeed, they could hear the widow lamenting her most appalling discovery through the closed doors.

"That's right, I took one look at my dear, dear departed husband and, to my horror, he's in a _brown _suit. I'd specifically said to the undertaker that I wanted him buried in his _blue _suit. I had brought it especially for this occasion. It is most distressing, SHOCKING to me that the mortician had left him in the same brown suit he'd been wearing when the lightning bolt hit him. I **demand** that my husband be changed IMMEDIATELY into the blue suit I brought especially for that purpose!"

Vurumagen would have solved the problem immediately with a minimum of fuss and his signature flare. The man could accomplish tasks that would take two or three men working together simultaneously to do, and he would do them with precision. In fact, he wouldn't have let it happen at all, and he certainly wouldn't have let it escalate to this degree. Sadly for Valgaav, Vurumagen only worked days and the evening's manager was inept; he chose to argue with the client. "But madam! It's only a minute or two until the funeral is scheduled to begin! We can't possibly take him out and get him changed in that amount of time."

To which the woman replied logically, "Who's paying for this?"

Xel whispered to Valgaav, "You take care of the lady; I'll deal with the deceased, okay?"

Valgaav agreed and pushed through the door. "Excuse me, ma'am. We'll take care of the problem at once. Please accept our humblest apologies..." Valgaav continued on, smoothing the irate woman's feathers as Xel wheeled the coffin out, down the hall, and back into autopsy suite.

"What are we going to do?" Zelgadiss asked.

"I'm not running out for a blue suit this time of night," Lina griped.

Xel continued into the chilly cadaver keep. "I'm sure you won't have to. Check this out." Xel pulled back a sheet covering another body revealing a man in the blue suit. "Just as I thought, the day shift put the wrong clothes on these two men."

Lina said, "How's that possible if the brown suit was the one he wore when he died?"

"Because he wasn't wearing that suit," Xel replied. "There are no singe or burn marks anywhere on it. The widow must be confused, but that's all okay. We'll remedy this."

Zel's breath left a visible puff in the frigid room. "Man... I've never dressed a dead man before, but I can tell you that it's going to take us a while to switch clothes."

"They look to be the same size and shape, right?" Xel smiled.

Lina did a quick comparison, and then offered up her opinion. "Mr. Blue Suit might be a tad thinner in the gut, but other than that, they're the same build."

"I agree. Good, we'll have this fixed in an instant. Zelgadiss, wheel Mr. Blue Suit here out, I'll get Mr. Brown, and we'll line them up in the autopsy room."

Zelgadiss did as he was told, while Lina watched, wondering what Xel's brilliant idea was. When he told them what he was going to do, they both paled, but Zel started blubbering. "That can't be okay, can it? I'm sure Valgaav wouldn't want us to do that."

"Who the hell cares?" Lina waved him off. "He's doing his job and we, er, Xel's doing his. I say, just do it and get it done with."

Surprised, but pleased by Lina's unexpected support, Xel got down to business. "Thank you. Zelgadiss, if you would loosen that one's tie..."

Minutes later, Xel wheeled the coffin back into the funeral parlor. Miraculously, the corpse was in its correct blue suit. The widow was well-satisfied, and complimented him on the smooth and speedy service. "I especially want to know how you were able to get my husband into his blue suit so fast. Even alive, it took me hours of complaining to get him to dress himself."

Xel tilted his head. "Oh, well... you see...that's a secret." He gave her a disarming smile, tipped an invisible hat, and disappeared quickly.

Valgaav stayed by the coffin until the ceremony was about to begin, then rejoined his friends in the autopsy room. "All right, Xel. How did you pull that one off so fast? I have a nasty feeling about this."

"Oh, it was easy. It happens that there was another body in the cadaver keep, who was, as I suspected, already dressed in the blue suit. Luckily, the men had been close enough in size not to matter. All we had to do was switch heads."

"That was entirely your idea. Leave me and Zelgadiss outta it," Lina said, pulling her support out from under Xel.

Valgaav focused on Xel. "No...you...didn't," Valgaav gasped. His frown deepened. "That is illegal. Shit, Xel! The funeral home could lose its license over this."

"Only if someone reports it, and they won't. That guy's going to be buried in an hour. The other one," Xel flipped through the funeral schedule book he'd filched on his way out, "has already been viewed and will be cremated in the morning. No one but us will ever know. See? All is well."

Valgaav stretched to his full height and glowered down at his older cousin. "No, it's not. You didn't know that when you did the switch. You just looked now. It's all just a matter of expedience with you, isn't it?"

"That's right, and it doesn't matter any more. Relax. You worry too much. We have plenty of other things to do tonight." Xel smiled and strode off, leaving Valgaav to deal with his anger internally.

"Well, you sure ticked him off," Lina muttered as Xel passed her.

Valgaav turned his back on them all and found the work list on the clipboard. From his standpoint, Zelgadiss and Amelia were the only people he could stand being around any more. He started to think about what he would do come the start of fall classes in few weeks. What were his choices? He had several to think about, but he couldn't come to any decision because Lina and Xel's problems were distracting him. He wanted them to patch up their friendship soon. Perhaps, he thought, if he corrected an untruth it would get the ball rolling on a solution. On the way home from work that night, Valgaav decided to tell Lina about the misrepresented Lain girlfriend, but not in person. He called Lina from his bedroom the moment he got home. "Lina?"

"Valgaav? What is it, and it had better be important 'cause I was about to take a shower."

"Amelia and I were talking, and she told me that Xel has a girlfriend named Lain."

Lina was quiet. "So?"

"Not true. Lain Sherra is really our cousin, Sherra Lain Grauscherra. I don't know what he was thinking, but I can guess." He waited a moment for her to say something before continuing. "He's acting crazy-desperate, so don't take it personally."

"Oh, I won't. I'll just kill him for lying to me. Thanks bunches, Valgaav. At least now I have a concrete reason to hate him." Lina slammed down the receiver and ended the call.

But as tough as she sounded when speaking to Valgaav, Lina was more exasperated with Xel's behavior than resentful towards him for lying to her. Why had he broken off with her? Had Xel really believed that he had been doing it for her own good? "What an idiot!" she said aloud. "How am I going to set him straight?"

Valgaav barely touched the phone to the cradle, when it rang again. "Lina..."

"No, I'm Amelia."

"Oh, hi, babe. Sorry about that. What's on your beautiful mind this early in your morning?"

Amelia giggled softly. "Um, would you do me a big favor?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Could you get Mr. Zelgadiss out of the house today about lunch time?"

"Probably. Shall I get Xel out, too, and then we'll have the whole house to ourselves?" he asked with a chuckle. "Just kidding, you know. Yeah, so what's up?"

"I just want Mr. Zelgadiss out and you with him, say... to lunch and I'll meet you guys there, okay? Please?"

"No problem. What's another day without enough sleep? And to show you how much I care, I won't even ask you why it is you want to see my cousin here alone."

"Oh, you figured that one out, huh? Thanks, Valgaav. I'll tell you later, when it's all over."

They spoke quietly a few minutes longer, and then called it a night, or start of a day, for Amelia.

* * *

Six hours later, Valgaav and Zelgadiss left home for their lunch appointment, Zelgadiss doing the driving. On the way to pick up Sylphiel at the hospital, he told Valgaav that this would amount to his first date with her. "So, just so you know before hand, since it just sorta happened."

"I didn't know you were interested in her," Valgaav said.

"She's been very nice, taking care of me at the hospital and all. She wants me, Valgaav. I mean, she _really _wants me. I like her, too, don't get me wrong. She never has a bad thing to say about anyone. She's gorgeous and she thinks I'm still good looking. Can you believe that?"

"Yes. We've been over that, and you know I think you look fine. I think you're pretty cool looking, and so do most right-thinking people. The thing is, you think you might want her as a girlfriend, right?"

"Absolutely."

"And you think she likes you, that you have a chance?"

"I'm sure."

"All right. I'm tight with that." Valgaav stopped his car. Before Zelgadiss reached for the door handle, he added, "I told Amelia I loved her."

"Really!" Zelgadiss dropped back in his seat. "_Love_ her?"

"Yeah. Maybe it was a mistake, but that's how I feel."

"But she's still in high school, and you're going back to college, aren't you? How's that going to work?"

"I don't know, Zelgadiss. Maybe I won't go back next fall. Maybe I'll stay in town and see what happens after she graduates. It's only a year, and who knows?"

Baffled, Zelgadiss shook his head and asked, "You'd do that? Put off your dream, work for your dad-- which I know is something you don't want to keep doing– all for her?"

"I'm thinking about that, yeah."

"Hnn," Zelgadiss snorted. He wondered if Valgaav had forgotten his plans to share an apartment or something with him in Atlas City. Zelgadiss shook his head with a wry smile. Naturally Valgaav hadn't been thinking about that when he had been with Amelia, which could mean that it was true: Valgaav was in love. So, in that case, Zelgadiss knew that he should support his friend and not cloud his moment with issues. "Hey, I guess you are in love. Um, that's great. She's nice and cute _and_ rich, if you didn't know."

"I know she's nice and cute, but the money thing... It's not important. Heads up, it's your new girlfriend. She must have gotten tired of waiting for you to go get her," Valgaav chuckled and pointed out the car window.

Sylphiel had crossed the blazing hot parking lot to Valgaav's car, smiling, pretty, and eager to join them. "You're a little early, but so am I. I arranged a nice long lunch break today, too. Hi!"

"Hi," Zelgadiss said as he rushed to open the door to the back seat and slid in beside her.

Valgaav nodded. The way the two gazed into one another's eyes told him the two were infatuated with one another.

Valgaav, Sylphiel, and Zelgadiss arrived at the restaurant a little early. It was Sylphiel who waved when they noticed Gourry arrive and hold the door for Filia.

"Hey, look!" Gourry called out. "It's Zelgadiss with some of the others."

Filia scanned the group for "the Evil One," and, not seeing Xel in the company, said, "Nice. Let's join them."

Valgaav asked the waitress to find them a couple tables next to each other in the back. He was going to watch Filia closely. He didn't know her well enough to guess how she might react to Sylphiel's entry into Zelgadiss' life. Would she flirt with him and attempt sabotage it, or be supportive?

* * *

While Valgaav was watching Filia over lunch, Amelia arrived at the boys' house to confront Xelloss. Xel answered the door, barely awake. "Amelia? Ah, nobody's here but me. Sorry."

"I came to see you, Mr. Xelloss."

"Oh? Well, that's nice. Come in, then."

Amelia stepped into the front room but didn't sit. "You see, I'd like to hear it from you. Why did you hurt Miss Lina? Why did you flirt with her when you had no intention of being true? Why did you have to just dump her like a poor excuse? It's so unfair...cruel! She was just...oh, I don't know, but you have hurt her a lot, and that makes me mad at you." She stared at him, challengingly, waiting for him to comment.

Xel was awake now. He ran a hand over his face and said nothing for a minute. Amelia stood her ground, which was several feet away from him, waiting. There was no long-standing friendship uniting them, only the shared love for a particular friend, which was now keeping them at odds.

At last Xel found his voice. "If you love someone, you should be prepared to let them go."

"Oh, really? Does that mean you would leave your cat or... your child if it became boring to you or interrupted what you wanted to do?"

"No, of course not," he said sharply.

With great sincerity, she started to lecture him. She believed in what she said wholeheartedly, so she put a lot of feeling into her presentation. "_Pleasure_ is about coming and going as you like. _Love _is about doing what is sometimes difficult or expensive in time and emotion, for someone _else's _sake, and finding that if it adds to their happiness, then it does to yours also."

"You are wise beyond your years, Miss Amelia," Xel said, mocking her gravity. "But what you say does not apply to this situation."

He did not intimidate her, however; she was not leaving without getting her answers. "How is it so different, Mr. Xelloss? Why does that make you so selfish and brutal?"

He thought a moment before lashing back, telling her to mind her own business. He was mulling about in his head the notion that Lina possibly had fallen in love with him, deeply. Perhaps Gourry wasn't the right man for her. "You choose to speak plainly, so I shall, too. I was reminded that I was much older than her, and that I should give her a chance to grow up on her own. It hadn't mattered at first. She was just one of the group we were getting to know, but then feelings developed. I care too much for her to be the one who corrupts her. Besides, she has Gourry. He's very solid, dependable, and all-around good guy. He'll make certain no harm comes to her."

"Well, we agree about Mr. Gourry, and that's about all. I'd heard about the other line of thinking...from a...friend." Amelia did not wish to involve Valgaav, and so, changed points. "Did you think to discuss your findings with her? Let Miss Lina be part of the decision?"

"Well, ah..."

"I _thought_ not. Sadly, I think she has fallen in love with you, despite everything." Amelia's voice softened and she appeared misty-eyed when she added dreamily, "She is so empty now."

Xelloss averted his gaze and considered what Amelia had just told him. Had Lina loved him? Had he truly loved her?

Amelia continued on as if reading his thoughts. She was moved to melodramatics at times, and this was one of them. She was fighting for a cause, a just cause. "I don't know how _deep_ a love it is, certainly. Maybe she had merely been _in love_, that consuming need for another person which _might_ include gentleness, generosity, patience and the ability to give of the heart, but also _might_ not. It could simply be a mixture of enchantment and hunger, a loneliness temporarily kept at bay."

"Say what?" Xelloss was having difficulty standing. He felt a bit woozy. This was too much to consume this early in the day, for him, and was now wondering about his relationship with Lina. Had he really loved Lina? He thought back, trying to remember it honestly. It hurt for many reasons, but mostly because he was ashamed of it. He had been fascinated, excited, challenged. She had been more intensely alive than any other woman he had known and certainly cleverer, and she was passionate. Of course, and he smiled slightly at the thought, so had other women in his past, including her sister, Luna.

In spite of that, he had became bored by the others because he was concerned primarily with his own appetites, his desire for excitement, change, flattery, and the sense of power in new conquests. How childish he had been. And now that he had released Lina, he realized what he had lost.

"Perhaps happiness was not in taking what you pleased, but in knowing the infinite value of what you had, and of being able to look at it with gratitude and joy!" Amelia shouted triumphantly with a beatific countenance from her achievement.

Xel focused his eyes with difficulty upon her beaming face. "Erk...?"

"And what about this other girlfriend of yours? Is she for real, or not? I don't even think there ever was a _Lain Sherra_, was there?"

"Well..."

"Ah, ha! There wasn't, was there? You lied to Miss Lina just to make her feel small and unimportant. What was her problem– not falling head over heels for you, or just that she wasn't willing to sleep with you? Well, it's your loss. She could have given you more than you ever dreamed of. You turned out to be just as awful as my sister said you'd be!"

He did not argue or even comment. Xel didn't like hearing the biting synopsis she'd given of his character.

"At least my sister was wrong about Mr. Valgaav," Amelia added, more than a touch self-righteously.

If only she hadn't said that.

For an unfortunate instant, Xel's better judgment fell to his baser instincts. He snapped back, "Oh! So, she told you he was a bisexual, and you're okay with that?" At that moment Xel recognized from her look of astonishment and pain, that Amelia had been in love with his cousin. He had crushed Amelia's image of Valgaav with a sentence, and he regretted his outburst immediately. Of course Nahga hadn't told her, possibly she hadn't known herself. It wasn't something he advertised to women he dated.

"You are a terrible, spiteful man, Mr. Xelloss. You think nothing of hurting everyone who loves you, do you? I came here to see if you were a man worthy of Miss Lina's heart, but I can see she's better off suffering a little pain now in order to shake off your charms and go on with her life. I am sorry to have bothered you." Amelia stood and left out the front door. She had waited until she was outside the house before she broke down and cried. Whether it was for Lina or herself, she didn't know.

* * *

Valgaav sat where could observe Filia's response to Sylphiel and Zelgadiss' new relationship. If she started a scene, he was prepared to end it immediately, even if it meant carrying Filia out over his shoulder. He had stood up to women like her before; they didn't intimidate him. Zelgadiss and Sylphiel nestled into a cozy bench seat in the back, Valgaav across from them, and Filia and Gourry, both tall, fit, and sporting long blond ponytails, shared a two-person table, which had been shoved up next to theirs.

"You getting another checkup at the hospital?" Gourry asked Zelgadiss. It appeared to be an innocent question, if you missed the twinkle in Gourry's eye. In an earlier phone conversation, Zelgadiss had given him a brief rundown of what had occurred at his last appointment, so Gourry was aware of his friend's budding romance.

Zelgadiss looked askance at Sylphiel before smiling and shaking his head. "No, this is just a lunch date."

Valgaav studied Sylphiel from beneath his green hanks of ragged bangs. He knew she had liked Gourry in the past, and wondered if her dating his best friend would make either of them uncomfortable.

"Our first date," Sylphiel said softly. Her eyes rose from the napkin she had been creasing to meet Zelgadiss' electric blue-green eyes, and they held that gaze for several moments.

"Of many," Zelgadiss finished for her.

Zelgadiss appeared at ease and so did Gourry and Sylphiel, too. So far so good, Valgaav decided. His thoughts drifted to Amelia for a second, and he hoped her meeting with Xel was going as well. If she couldn't inspire Xel to do the right thing, nobody could.

"Oh, so you two are going out now?" Filia said in a casual manner. "That's nice. I always thought you'd be great together, except that you looked too much alike. But now that Zelly's got his new look..."

Valgaav cast a glance at Zelgadiss, hoping Filia would shut up already. She had a way of making cutting remarks that hurt others. Zelgadiss was concentrating on Sylphiel, however, and meekly shrugged as Filia continued expressing her opinion, "But it seems that...that's not such a problem any more."

Sylphiel replied in her kind manner, "That's so sweet, Filia! Our biggest problem, actually, is finding time together with our different work hours, so-- and I just found out today, Zelly– next week I work at the hospital on the night shift. Isn't that great? We'll be on the same duty period."

"That's nice, Sylphiel," Zelgadiss told her. "You just started there, though. You're not pushing for favors or anything, are you?"

"Oh, no. No one wants the night shift, so they were thrilled to do this for me. I'm doing the head nurse a big favor, in fact. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you so I'd better do it now or I _really_ might forget... Um, my father would like to meet you, so after lunch, if you don't mind stopping by, he'll give you a ride back home and drop me off at work."

"That would be okay," Zelgadiss murmured. He didn't think he'd make a very good impression, but didn't want to hurt her feelings by refusing.

"Just keep the car, then," Valgaav offered. "I'll get a ride back with Amelia." _If she ever gets here, _he thought to himself.

Valgaav could tell that Zelgadiss was ill at ease being the center of attention, so with those plans settled, he was about to ask Gourry about his job when the waitress came by to take their food orders. After that, he had his chance, but Filia started in first, saving him the trouble. "So, I love the job, Sylphiel. No wonder you stayed at the health club for so long. It's really fun work. You meet the best people, and Gourry is a great boss."

Gourry appeared a little embarrassed when she praised him, but he didn't argue. Instead he found nice things to say as well. "Yeah, I never thought we could replace you, Sylphiel, but Filia's coming along real fast. And most of your clientele are coming back. Next door, the coffee shop is going up for sale and well... Filia's got this idea for turning it into a health bar and café kinda place."

"That's a good idea," Sylphiel agreed.

They continued discussing the possible menu and redecorating plans for the bar and café until their lunches arrived. They ate in relative silence for the next ten minutes. Sylphiel kept feeding Zelgadiss French fries and cajoling him into trying half her BLT sandwich. "You're still underweight."

Valgaav thought it was funny and tried hiding his smile whenever Zelgadiss would give in to another bite. "What a guy won't suffer for a girl," he snickered under his breath.

At last, Zelgadiss could eat no more, so he started talking. "So we bowl against Zelas' team Sunday. Any hints?"

Gourry, Filia, and Sylphiel all had plenty of things to say. By the end of the meal, they had Valgaav and Zelgadiss dreading the upcoming game. Gourry must have sensed the conversation was getting everyone down, because he was the one to change the subject this time. "So, are you still doing that play?"

"Yeah, in fact we have dress rehearsal pretty much all day Saturday, which sucks because we'll be wasted before the bowling tournament." Zelgadiss looked angry, but he drew a deep breath and calmed down when Sylphiel patted his arm sympathetically. "Anyway, the performance is next weekend, if you're interested."

Of course they were. Everyone wanted tickets, so Zelgadiss offered to take care of that. Filia checked her watch. "Oh, darn. Looks like we'd better get back so the others can take their lunch breaks, too, don't you think Gourry?"

"Yep," he agreed. "So, ah...congrats you guys, and be seeing ya around, then." Gourry left money to cover their portion of the bill. "Say hi to Amelia when she gets here," he added, and then left with Filia.

"Are you sure she's coming?" Sylphiel asked Valgaav. "What's she doing?"

He had been quiet most of the afternoon, preferring to sit back, listen, and study the other people. "She had some appointment to go to first. That's okay. I'll wait here for her. You two go on and do your thing. You have the keys on you still? Oh, yeah I've got them. Here!"

Zelgadiss snatched the car keys out of the air. "Yes, thanks. This ought to cover us," he said, dropping a few bills. "I'll catch you later at home."

As the couple left, hand-in-hand, Valgaav knew he didn't need to worry about Zelgadiss any more. The man was in _good_ hands. Valgaav could now concentrate on his own life, and what he should do, come fall. His father would be gratified if he remained at the mortuary. He could continue to see Amelia and accumulate wealth. When Amelia was ready to graduate, they could go to college together, he to finish up his anthropology and she to study whatever she was interested in. He began to imagine what her interests might be, when his daydreams were interrupted by his buzzing cell phone.

"Yeah?" The call was from Xelloss, which meant, Valgaav deduced, that Amelia must be on her way. "Hey, about time you made good with Lina, dude." He listened to the brief message, and then added, "Okay, just drop me and Zelgadiss off first, if it works out that she wants to go. Right. Bye."

"Good for you, Amelia." Valgaav's admiration for her filled his heart to the brim, then bubbled over into a smile. An inner-warmth he'd never experienced before sent a thrill through him. He knew it was love, and it was turning his world upside down. Everything he wanted to do began with the word "Amelia." He enjoyed the new feeling, and the moment of solitude. It gave him time to think, and he liked to sit and think, so he did. He gazed unfocused into the distance, past the dusty binds. Behind them, the sun blazed at its apex. He liked the heat. His clan had been a desert people, so the steady heat of summer was in his blood. He would like to return to see his birth place. His thoughts roved to a possible road trip to the desert at winter break. He imagined Amelia at his side, listening to music, driving under the open skies, and smelling the sagebrush.

* * *

Xel stood on the other side of the door and listened to Amelia's sobs. Valgaav would kill him for this. Amelia was the best girl Valgaav had ever had. She made his serious cousin smile. He'd even remarked about her while they were at work. "Oh, shit."

He opened the door and silently stepped out onto the porch, wrapping Amelia in a gentle hug. "I'm sorry. I really am. I shouldn't have said that; it wasn't my place. Valgaav's a good guy, Amelia– the best. He is crazy about you, and you are the best thing that's ever happened to him. You make him laugh, and the gods know how he needs that in his line of work."

"Really? You mean that?" she asked, sniffing back her tears. "This isn't another of your lies, is it?"

"No, it's the truth, Amelia. Valgaav talks about you, and he never talks about any girl, ordinarily."

Amelia's expression hardened. "Any _girl_? How about _boys_?"

"Not them either. Believe me; I'm sorry I said that. It just came out. Valgaav's not dating guys, Amelia. There was a time when he was...confused, I guess. Lot of guys are, actually. But he hasn't lately, that I know of." Xel met Amelia's eyes and sighed. "Atlas City is a different place than Seyruun. Rules are different, and that makes people act differently. Me included."

"It seems to me that you act as bad _here_ as your reputation leads me to believe you acted _there_."

It took him a moment to follow her line of logic. "Not everything your sister tells you about me is correct, but I'm not going to defend myself right now. Valgaav, on the other hand, I owe a fix to what I said about him. I'm sure he'll talk to you about it, if it's important anymore. He's very honest that way."

"I don't know what to believe. Coming from you, an endorsement doesn't mean much. Don't you have any morals?"

"Of course I do. I'm a doctor."

Amelia realized his weakness at that moment, and decided to take advantage of it. "Well, if that's not your problem, then it's simple, I mean... what your problem is, that is. See, you've never been in love."

"No, never, not at all," he agreed with aplomb. He wasn't going to let this little girl get the upper hand. However, she was breaking him down little by little. "I mean, I have feelings for Lina, but I don't understand them. Still, I think she'd be better off with a better man."

"Maybe, but that's between you and her, not for you alone to decide; at least, that would be the right way to go about things."

"The right and just way?"

"Don't patronize me, Mr. Xelloss. It wouldn't kill you to do something nice for someone."

"We don't _know_ that." He smiled and held out a hand for her to shake. "Truce?"

"Maybe. Are you going to tell Miss Lina the truth?"

"I don't think that would be a good idea. I'll let things run their course, my way."

"Uh, huh. We'll see how _that _works out." Amelia crossed her arms across her ample chest, and then shook her finger in his face. "I think you like Miss Lina a lot and that terrifies you. You're afraid of finding love and happiness, because if you do, you might have to change your evil ways, and that takes a _real_ man to do, not some over-grown teenager. Good bye, Mr. Xelloss."

"Good bye, Miss Amelia." What he had told her was not accurate. His feelings were very strong for Lina, and he had decided it was time to take action. Xel didn't want Amelia to know and somehow have that information get back to Lina before he had a chance to meet with her himself. He called Valgaav's cell phone and got him on the third ring. "I'll be getting with Lina after work tonight. Yeah, okay, thanks. Bye."

* * *

Valgaav had no idea how long he had been sitting there, when he felt a light tap on his shoulder and then heard a familiar voice that broke him from his revere. "Hi, sorry it took me so long. I had to stop for gas."

With a strong, lanky arm, Valgaav pulled Amelia close so he could growl in her ear, affecting a strange accent. "Yes, woman. You make me wait so long... my friends... they all have left me."

"You're so funny," she giggled. For a moment she forgot her mixed feelings about Valgaav, after her conversation with his cousin, but when she sat in the booth, her stomach clenched up with nervous dread.

He knew something was not right. "Hey, what's the matter? Xel give you a hard time? I don't know what you said, but you got to him and he's going to talk to Lina now. Say, now... Why the tears, Amelia?"

His heartfelt concern vied with the terrible images she had conjured up in her head as she had driven to the restaurant. Valgaav dressed in girl's clothing, picking up boys, and partying in Atlas City. "Can we go someplace else?" she sniffed.

"Sure. Zelgadiss has my car, so we'll take yours. Sure. Whatever you want, babe." Valgaav counted out his money and settled the remainder of the bill. "Come on... where are you parked?"

She handed over the keys and let him drive to a nearby park packed with kids from a daycare center. They found a shady spot beneath a tall oak tree and sat together on the only non-sun-baked grass they could find. "Okay, tell me what's wrong," he said. "Xel didn't hurt you, did he?"

"He wasn't very nice, but, no, he didn't harm me." She looked down at her hands, afraid to say what was on her mind.

Valgaav was used to waiting. He let her collect her thoughts and tell her story in her own time. He wouldn't push her. Instead, he thought about how he'd bash Xel's head in when he got home.

"I think I got a little preachy and got on his nerves. But things were okay until I mentioned how much better a guy you were than him, and then he...he..."

"What did he tell you, Amelia? Was it something about me? Something you don't like?"

Her eyes filled with tears, and she had to hunt through her little purse for a tissue. "Yes."

Valgaav though for a moment. He hadn't any secrets; he had nothing to hide, but he could think of one thing that might upset Amelia. "He told you I'm bisexual, right?"

She nodded through bleary eyes.

"He shouldn't have. I was going to, soon, in my own way. All right, then come here closer and let me tell you something." After she settled comfortably in the crook of his arm, using his chest as a pillow, he began. "When you go places, you see guys you think are nice looking, right?"

"Well, yes..."

"Okay, you look at them, but you don't hit on them, do you?"

"Oh, no. I have you. I don't need them at all," she said quickly. She didn't have to think hard to understand her deepest feelings for him.

"Well, same thing goes for me. I see girls, _or guys_, that I think are hot, but that's it. I love you. I don't need any others. I don't need anyone but you, ever again. Okay, yeah, I think some guys are sexy, and some girls, too-- that's just the way I am. Doesn't make much difference to me. I'm lucky that way; I can appreciate any type."

Amelia's eyes were wide and glistening, but she was no longer on the verge of crying. "That's lucky? Well, I guess since you put it that way, I guess you are. But, Lina told me you and Xel dressed up like girls for a show you put on. Was that true?"

"Yes, but that was just for the show, Amelia. For _fun_. I'm not a transvestite. You can check my closet, if you want. Nothing to hide. I've got a past, but it doesn't haunt me."

"But..."

"Yes...?"

"But I always thought it would be kinda icky, two guys, ya know?"

Valgaav chuckled at her cute scrunched-up face. "Yeah, well, I'm no expert, Amelia. I don't mess around like Xel, and I'm not a dater. I just hang out with folks for a good time."

"Oh. I'm not sure I understand, completely."

"Ah, that is, until I get to know them, then I would. I mean, I'd like to take you out sometime, not with the others around. A real date. You think you'd like that? Are you okay with what I've told you? I wasn't trying to hide anything, Amelia. I was going to talk to you about that and other things about my family, like how I was adopted and all, but I was waiting for a little privacy."

"Oh, well, I'm glad you told me now. I think I'm good with it, Valgaav, just as long as you tell me everything about yourself so I don't have to hear it from someone else first."

"I promise." Valgaav was sincere. He wanted Amelia's trust more than anything. "So, do you think your father would let you date me? I mean, if _you_ want to, of course."

With a sigh, Amelia gave up all her anxieties about him. He was perfect for her, almost, but his flaws were a part of him, too, and thankfully, she could live with imperfections like that. "I'd love to go out, Valgaav. Daddy likes you, so that's a good start. He's home now, drafting plans of some sort. Why not come over and ask him?"

"Sure, we can do that. I have time." He wrapped her in a tight hug, pressed his lips close to an ear, and whispered to her, "Don't let Xel or anybody hurt what we've got. You just come to me whenever you aren't certain of something, and I'll it give it to you straight, all right?"

Then Amelia knew why she loved him so much: he stood for truth and justice in her eyes, and that meant all the world to her. "I promise you, Valgaav. Even if I don't like what I hear, I know you'll always level with me and not treat me like a child. And, as much as I love being here with you... it's too hot!"

She jumped up and straightened out her clothes. "Ready to go?"

"Um, you think, maybe, I should wash off the eye makeup?"

"No. It's a part of who you are. Either Daddy likes you that way, or not, and my bet is he will have faith in my judgment."

"You are a rare human being, Amelia, my little princess." He rose from the ground, leaned in, and kissed her lightly. "Now I'm ready."

* * *

Work was a very quiet affair that night with no interruptions and little talking. Lina had two pickups, both at convalescent hospitals. Valgaav and Zelgadiss completed two embalmings, and Xel assisted on one autopsy. An hour early, Valgaav hung up the clipboard and called the work-night over.

Xel timed his exit to synchronize with Lina's, after Valgaav and Zelgadiss had both left the morgue building. "If you don't mind," he said to Lina, "I'd like to drop off my cousins first."

"First?" Lina was caught off guard by his voice. She assumed he would prefer avoiding her than seeking out her company. She wondered what his move might mean. "Okay, if you want to go out of your way like that, it's no skin off my apple."

Xel's smile faded. Lina was trying too hard to sound unconcerned, he thought. Had Amelia been wrong? Was it too late to mend what was left of their relationship and start over? Time for the direct approach. "I'll drop them off, and then I think you and I need to talk."

Lina swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Having to confront Xel and her growing feelings for him suddenly took on monstrous proportions. Shrinking away from him, she said, "Talk, huh? Well, I'm pretty wasted tonight, and I'd like a bath, maybe something to eat..."

"I promise you'll get all that, but _we will talk_." He applied emphasis to the last three words and could actually see her flinch. He couldn't read her mind, and her face was sober, but her quick-stepping-it to the car was a sign of her nervous state. He hoped it was a good kind of nervous or his plans to impress her would fall flat. With a skip to catch up to her, he added, "Don't run off, Lina. I mean all this in a good way. I want to right some wrongs; I've been a fool, Lina. I hope you can forgive me."

Lina shrugged her acceptance, but inside she was both thrilled that he was so interested in her and shocked that he had admitted a failing. She wanted to hear more, but not with Valgaav and Zelgadiss listening in.

Xel apparently felt the same way, she observed, because as soon as they reached the car, he said no more to her. On the ride to their house, Valgaav and Zelgadiss did all the talking. A few minutes later, Xel was parking in front of his house, engine running. He leaned over and whispered in his cousin's ear, "Wish me luck."

Valgaav nodded and slid out of the passenger seat. Zelgadiss hopped out, followed by Lina, who then climbed into the front beside Xel. Zelgadiss thought this was odd and was about to ask Lina what was up when Valgaav caught his sleeve and pulled him toward the house. "Come on. He's going to take her out to settle things."

"She's going with Xel, alone? Why should she trust him? He's only leading her into one of his traps, right?"

"You don't think she can handle herself?" Valgaav asked looking back at the car about to depart.

"I guess she can, but I don't want things to get worse. She's been in a touchy enough mood all week, and we have that bowling tournament with Zelas' team this weekend, remember? It would be nice if the team could actually behave like a team this time."

"I think Xel has taken all that into account. Don't worry. He can only make it so much worse, and he might resolve everything. So, we got tamales to heat up?"

Zelgadiss said, "Yes," and then described how he made them as the Xel and Lina drove off.

Xel shoved the car into gear then turned toward Lina and suggested, "How about we drive awhile?"

"Sure, we can watch the sun come up, but I warn ya, I might drift off." Her heart leapt at his smile, sending a flush of blood to her face, which nearly gave away her eagerness to be with him. She couldn't possibly fall asleep because of her excitement, and also because she was curious where he was taking her.

Her mind raced. To Lina, it seemed that what Amelia had said was true, and now he was having second thoughts about their ten-year age difference. That was nice; it fit in with her decision to fight for his attention again, however, how much did she want a relationship with Xel? She had to wonder about that. She was still unsure about him, herself, and where Gourry fit in. Life was more exciting with Xel, possibly dangerous, which she liked. There was a problem with reliability, his motives, and trust; he could equivocate better than anyone she had ever known. But then, she wasn't looking for a life partner, or was she?

Xel chose a CD, turned up the volume, and opened the skylight. The cooling breeze blew her hair gently, but the night air was still warm. The soft jazz instrumental music floated on the air around her; the car was carried with the tide, rising with the waves– it was like a dream as they surged ahead into the night. She sighed, smiled, and leaned her head back on the seat. She might as well enjoy herself, she thought. "Where are we going?" she thought to ask.

"The Inn at the Top of the World."

"That's nice," she said, thinking he was making it up. She did notice the continuous rise in altitude as they wound their way up a mountain road. Every so often, the switchback revealed a breathtaking view of the Seyruun valley below. The car decelerated past a row of neatly pruned tea bushes as Xel turned into a nearly full parking lot.

Lina straightened in her seat as she read the sign. "You were serious!"

"Yes. You've never been here?"

"I hadn't even_ heard_ of this place before. Is it really an inn?"

"Hot springs, five star restaurant, and private accommodations." He turned off the ignition. The comfortable, modern lodge was set in a cedar forest. Private stone baths were chiseled out of the limestone bedrock and plumbed to distribute the hot, natural mineral water to each of the rooms. "It's the perfect place to unwind after a night at the morgue. We can soak and eat without staying over, but I'd prefer not to drive back without a few hours sleep."

"Looks pretty pricey. Bet you need reservations a year ahead of time."

"Almost. We have some."

"Some what? Reservations? What are we doing here?"

"I promised you a bath, food, and rest."

"Here?"

"That's right. Wouldn't you like to go in and see the place? I took the liberty of arranging a room, but if you aren't comfortable, we can leave."

"You don't think I can like a fancy-ass place like this? I can fit in anywhere."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it." _I'm asking you to sleep with me_, his mind screamed.

"Oh, you meant staying here together and sharing a room. Well, we'll see how it goes. Now that we're this far, I'm not about to go back without you at least buying me dinner."

"That's the spirit! I hoped you'd be enthusiastic." Xel held the door for her and led her to the desk. Even at that hour of the early morning, the desk was staffed.

"Yes, Mr. Metallium. Your room is ready. Would you like to take breakfast first?"

"I think we'll have it delivered to our room. Does that sound okay with you?" Xel asked Lina.

"Sure, I'll have one of everything."

"Well, that's a great deal of food, madam."

"That's true," Xel said with a smile. He whispered to the desk clerk, "I already ordered all that's necessary, but we don't want to make a scene," then winked. He lightly wrapped an arm around Lina's shoulders, a feather-light touch, and turned her in the right direction. "Let's see that room, Lina."

As they walked off down the hall, Lina turned to Xel. "I hope you aren't getting any ideas about all this. I don't have a change of clothes or anything."

"I'm getting _many_ ideas, Lina, but I'll take my cue from you."

Again, Lina found herself blushing from his suggestiveness. When she looked up to see if he had noticed, she found that he wasn't looking at her. Instead, he had stopped at a door, busying himself with swiping the pass card through a metal slot. The lock disengaged magically, to Lina, who had never seen a pass key like that.

He swung open the door. "I tried to take care of everything. Take a look."

The room was elegant, but not overdone. The carpeting was thick and soft on her feet as Lina removed her sandals. She strode past the bed and table, ignoring the furniture completely, and approached what she thought were floor to ceiling windows. She flung back heavy silk curtains to reveal a pair of French doors. "A porch?" she wondered. "No! Oh, our own hot springs to soak in! This is terrific."

"Shhh... Let's not wake up the neighbors," he cautioned her. "The lodge provides towels and robes. Would you like to go in before we eat?"

"No, I'd rather eat first, but I'll take a quick shower to clean off the morgue smell."

"I'll wait, then."

"Oh, you'll wait _lots_."

Lina was quick to undress, then, wrapped only in her thick gold robe, she stalked out into the room. Xel thought she was beautiful. His eyes skimmed over her tiny figure, resting finally on her eyes. "Ah..." He was so absorbed in the study of her undulating form beneath the cloth that he nearly forgot what he about to say.

Lina noticed and filled with pleasure, although she also hid it as best she could. "Go ahead and clean up, too. You'll feel better, and I guarantee you'll smell better. Hey, don't worry. I see the table. I'll show the guy where to leave the food when it comes, okay?"

Xel placed a bill on the table. "I'll leave the tip, then. Thanks." Without another word, he strode past her to shower.

When he come out in his matching gold robe, Lina was already seated at the table and watching the server light candles and open the champagne. "That's okay, I'll pour that," Xel told the young man. "You can go now. Thanks."

As the room service cart disappeared out the door, Xel took a chair. "I'm not sure if I want to drink. Sometimes having inhibitions is a good thing."

"Yeah," she agreed, and then removed a covered dish. "Sushi?"

"Yes, with local stream-caught fish, so it's the freshest possible."

Lina was more interested in finishing off a big bowl of hearty pork-stock soup loaded with handmade noodles. She set down her bowl at last and pointed out another dish. "What's that?"

"Tofu." The soft curd sat in an ash-gray clay bowl. Xel spooned out balls of glistening white tofu into shallow, glossy black bowls. "This is hand-made on the premises. I think it has a nutty aroma and is nice as is, but you may like a dribble of soy sauce and a few scallions."

"Okay. So this is a Japanese meal."

"Light and nutritious."

"It's different. I may need more to eat later." Lina poured herself ice water from a carafe, while disguising a yawn.

"That is what 24-hour room service is for."

The rising sun cast its rosy glow into the room. Xel liked the way it made Lina's hair turn to flames, but he couldn't stare at her for too long or he might lose control. She wasn't his to have. He hadn't won her heart for certain, if that was yet even possible. He looked out the glass doors at the wisps of steam rising from the water. "Ready to soak those tired muscles?"

"By the dawn's early light? Sure, but shouldn't we wait and hour or so?"

"No, we can go in now. We just shouldn't_ stay_ in the water too long, after eating. Would you like to get in first?"

"With you _watching_ me? No. You first, then turn your back."

"With you watching** me**?" he chuckled. "I see. Well, have it your way." He strode confidently to the pool's edge, but when he was about to drop the robe, he was overtaken with self-doubt. He had no idea how experienced she was with men, but he didn't want to disgust her. He modestly turned his back to her, stepped into the water, and, at the last possible instant, removed the robe and gave it a hard toss to the side. He slipped under the water to his neck and sighed contentedly.

As soon as he heard the padding of her feet on the rock edge, he closed his eyes and turned away. If he could throttle his eagerness, allow Lina to move at her own speed, he might have a chance.

"This feels...unbelievable. I've never been in a place like this. Not even a hot tub. Gods, I want one of these in my house someday," she said, sighing.

"Hmmm..."

They soaked in silence awhile, watching the sunrise. After awhile, Xel decided he needed to begin. "Lina, let me begin by apologizing for my stupidity the last time we were at Wolfpack Island, where, I must say again, you were most impressive. I was thinking that by cutting short any possible...romance between us, that I'd protect you from my evil devices, but, then the way I ended up treating you turned out to be worse than ever."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Somehow, I didn't want you to know how...attracted I was to you." He was finding it more difficult telling her the how he felt than he had expected, and was stumbling over certain words.

"You mean, when I pointed out the heart thing you drew with the initials in it—you know, the one marking the way out of the sewer-- that really was about you and me, like I thought?"

"Yes... yes, that embarrassed me so I lied about having a girlfriend with the "L" initial. Lain. You know that's your name with the "a" moved?" He smiled trying to lighten the moment, but failed to amuse Lina.

"Is that _all_? You are confessing that after using me as an excuse for being on the island and as a distraction for your mother, you just found me too hard to resist. However, I was not the kind of pushover you were in the market for, so you dropped me for an non-existent girlfriend. Is that it in a nut shell?"

"No, no!" He sat up, eyes wide, nearly frantic. Unfortunately, he inhaled a mouthful of hot mineral water, causing him to gag and fall into a coughing fit. After he had composed himself, with no sympathy from Lina, he explained. "I took you to the island because I wanted to show you the place. Remember, I was going to gather evidence alone; it was you who forced me to take you into the labs. I was showing you off, if you have to know. Sherra, she's a cousin, you met her, and she not my girlfriend, of course. Oh, and told me she liked you, by the way. She thought you were...very brave."

"Foolhardy, I'll betcha she called me. Okay, so I messed up your plans, although without me you wouldn't have seen those bodies..."

"Or had to kill a man..."

"Well, sure, but he was one of the bad guys, right? So things were going pretty good until I mentioned that heart you drew."

"That and, well, later I was reminded, and rightly so, that I had ten years older than you. And that what I might want...well, it wouldn't be fair to ask a girl your age to..."

"To what? You want to date just me or what? Be _exclusive_? Or are you meaning you didn't want to seduce me and ruin my reputation or something? Ah, 'cause I can tell you, you wouldn't be the first in that department."

That caught Xel by surprise. He hadn't expected her to have ever slept with a guy, not by her behavior as far as he could tell. "You and Gourry, then?"

"No, not with him either," she sighed.

A wave of relief passed through him. Somehow, he saw Gourry as his biggest obstacle to winning Lina, and knowing that she'd never slept with him was a good sign. "Oh? Well, ah... oh."

"I'll tell you who, so you don't keep trying guessing, 'cause it wasn't Zelly, like so many others seem to think. It was Zangalus."

Xel stared incredulously at her. "Martina's boyfriend? _That_ Zangalus?"

She nodded. "Nothing to be proud of about that one. It was a big mistake all around, I can tell you. I did it on a dare. It was so stupid. Not only stupid but awful, in fact. The next day he started boasting about it at school. Luckily, Gourry was the first and the last guy he told. I thought Gourry was going to pound the shit out of him. Zelgadiss stopped him, thank the gods, and they both managed to silence Zangalus with the threat of permanent damage. Somehow the rumor was started that it was Zelly and me doing the messing around, probably by Martina, who had been trying to get Zangalus to notice her, but by that time I was dating Gourry, and the stories just faded away. That's probably why Martina hates me, now that I think about it. My point being, you wouldn't be the one who ruined me, if anything ever would happen, and I'm not saying that it would, because to tell you the truth, the sex part is icky and uninteresting."

"I wouldn't say uninteresting..."

"I hate being touched."

"If it were Zangalus doing the touching, I'd hate it too," Xel said with a wry smile.

Lina chuckled a little. "Idiot."

"I think I could do a lot better, but I'm not asking or trying to push you in any way. I didn't bring you here for that, believe me or not. I wanted to treat you to a nice time, without the threat of storms, wolves, or mad scientists with knives attacking you, and I wanted to tell you... the truth."

"And you've told me the truth?"

"Yes. Well, not totally."

Lina shot him a fiery glare. "Oh yeah? Why not?"

"I mean, everything I've said has been true– no lies, Lina– but I haven't told you everything. I'm not sure I can."

"And why's that? What dark and terrible secrets do you need to hide still?"

He demurred. Now that gotten this far, he wasn't sure about taking the next step. How much should he admit? "Oh, not so dark and terrible. I'm just uncertain as to how I should tell you."

"How about in as few a number of words as possible. I'm getting tired."

"I can do that, but it means I'll have to get a lot closer."

"That depends on just what you're getting at," Lina said. She could feel ripples of water slapping at her exposed shoulders as Xel moved across the pool to her side.

"Well, can we consider this our first date?" he asked, inches from her ear, and sending shivers up and down her spine.

As she nodded, his lips brushed her neck.

"And you forgive me?" He circled around, kissing her lightly on her cheeks and the tip of her nose.

She blinked once, and then he kissed her lips, once only. That was it. If he allowed himself to caress her skin, then he couldn't hold back his desire. "Lina, it's time to get out of the water."

"W-what? No way are you getting me out of here."

"We both have to get out. It's too warm. You don't want to get overheated, especially after eating."

"But I'm so comfy."

Xel sighed, tired of arguing. Her childish stubbornness wasn't very appealing. "Aw, it isn't so bad. You get out, wrap up in your robe, towel off a little, and go to bed. I guarantee you'll sleep like a baby, and then the pool will be here when you wake up."

"How long have we got this place, then? Can I eat again, too? That Japanese stuff was okay, but not very filling."

"We have to leave in time to pick up the others for work, but that's for many, many hours. Until then, enjoy yourself."

"As long as you're footing the bill, okay. So, ah, turn around...look out that way." Lina waited until Xel's back was turned, then she climbed out of the warm pool.

He could hear her moving about a little, and then leave and enter the room, but he remained and enjoyed the tranquility a little longer. The sunrise over Seyruun had been spectacular, and now the pale mauve tones of rising mist signaled what would be another hot, steamy day in the valley. The cedar forest blocked half the valley from view to one side, and from it rose a clamor of bird song and squirrel chatter. He thought that might be a fun place to explore with Lina later. His thoughts returned to Lina. He guessed that she was under the sheets by this time, and it would be safe for him to get out of the pool. He wrapped a towel around his waist and carried in his robe. Sure enough, Lina was asleep-- right in the center of the bed.

"Lina, you make this ever harder for me," he said softly, although he knew she couldn't hear his voice in her sleep. He scooped up their clothes, stuffed them into a laundry bag provided by the lodge, and set it outside the door for cleaning. He locked the door and returned to the bed. Leaving the towel where it dropped, he climbed in beside her, gently pushing her into a more comfortable position, for him. "Do you want me?" he whispered. "I wish I knew."

After a few minutes, he, too, dozed off. They slept away the intense heat of the day, and might have slept longer had Xel's watch alarm not awakened him. "How nice," he said to an armload of Lina and face full of her hair. He carefully dislodged an arm from beneath her neck and pulled apart without jostling her. First things first, he paid a necessary visit to the bathroom, then he retrieved his robe, for modesty's sake, and called the desk. "Hello, yes everything is fine. We'd like dinner, but we haven't anything to wear. I set out our clothes for cleaning, and they haven't returned. Okay... Oh, that would be fine. No, no problem. How about in ten minutes? Thanks."

Lina had awakened at the sound of his voice on the phone. "What's up?"

"They have a small clothes shop here, where robe attire is welcome, and no one else is in the store currently. So, here's your concealing garment..."

"Barely," she grumbled as she snatched the robe from his hand and proceeded to dress under the sheets. "Why don't we just order room service again?"

"Because, this is more fun. Let's go see what the fashion guru here has for us."

There weren't many things to choose from, but Lina found a short sea-green silk dress that flattered her build and new underwear, while the clerk located a pair of black, pin-striped slacks and a black sports coat for Xelloss.

"Lina, help me find a shirt."

"This gold turtleneck would look good on you," Lina said.

"It looks hot, and I mean that temperature-wise."

"The restaurant is air conditioned," the clerk told him.

"Fine, but I'll take this burgundy cotton shirt, too, if I can't stand it. I think those silver sandals would look nice with that dress, Lina."

She agreed, but warned him, "They're not cheap, Xel. This is coming to a lot of money."

"What price beauty, eh?" Xel smiled. "Give me a minute to change clothes, then we'll go eat." He handed over his credit card to the clerk, and then disappeared into a changing room. When he came out, he was wearing the red shirt. "I don't care, the other is too hot for summer."

"Yeah, but gold's your color. Get it anyway, for winter."

"Very well." Xel shook his head and told the clerk to total it all up.

"So, we're about ready to go eat then?" Lina asked, poised to move.

"Yes, as soon as these are paid for, we'll go to the dining room. It has a nice view." Xel said evenly. He didn't look up, though. He watched the clerk carefully write out the receipt in his perfect script.

"Okay, then I'll just dip into the dressing room and put on the underwear."

Xelloss' head snapped up, his eyes opened partially, revealing x-ray amethyst orbs, just in time to catch Lina's wink before she ducked behind the curtain. In that instant, he overlaid the image of her lying in bed– oh, yes, he had looked long and hard at her delicate nude body before pulling the sheets over them and falling asleep– upon her now-awake form dressed in a tiny silk dress. The urge to chuck dinner and drag her back to their room was strong enough to cause him to take a step forwards.

The poor clerk gasped, and then cleared his throat and asked, "Sir? Your credit card and receipt. Enjoy your purchases. Would you, er, like me to have those robes sent back to your room?"

Xelloss halted mid-stride. He nearly growled at the poor clerk for interrupting his train of though. "Yes! Do that."

Lina exited the dressing room, beaming. "Ready! Now, let's eat some real food, okay?"

Xel smiled resolutely. "Okay, and then we have time for a short walk around the grounds and maybe another soak, if you'd like."

"I'd like that, sure." Lina smiled in return and marched out the door. Xel had to hurry to keep pace. "Don't dawdle, Xelloss. Dinner is going to take awhile."

"I was just wondering. You were joking about the underwear back there, weren't you?"

"Maybe I was, and maybe I wasn't." Lina smiled over her shoulder at him. "And maybe I'm not wearing any now."

1Xel couldn't remember ordering, or eating, but he must have because the time had passed and the bill had arrived. Lina had put away a five-digit-dollar, five-star dinner all by herself. He had requested the cost of the meal be put on their room tab, then led Lina out.

"That was some dinner. You were awfully quiet."

"Was I?" Xel wasn't about to tell Lina that he had been distracted throughout the dinner by anything as stupid as wondering about the presence of her underwear. It had even shocked him that he had been wholly distracted by such a simple detail, after having spent the previous few hours completely naked with her– unfulfilled ones. "I, ah, would like to see the forest. It's just a short walk. Interested?"

"A walk in the forest? Sure, why not?"

The forest was a parts of the lodge's rounds. Carefully tended paths, soft with layers of tinder-dry cedar debris, wound around rock outcroppings and bushes heavy with berries, eventually leading them downhill to a stream. Lina took off her sandals and splashed along the edge. Xel closed his eyes and breathed deeply, filling his lungs with the delightfully scented air. It was always cooler in the forest, even after a sweltering day, and with the low sun casting long shadows, he sensed the first suggestion of fall weather. He felt better than he had in weeks.

Lina noticed. "You look happy." She like the dappling of sun and shade on his hair, making the purple highlights sparkle.

"I am."

"This place suits you."

"It does. I grew up playing in the forest. Running and playing in the forest. Well, mostly running. Wolves chased me, you know."

Lina laughed. "Ha! Wolves...what a bunch of..." Her foot landed on an algae-coated rock and slipped out from under her.

"Watch out!" Xel leaped forward, nimbly hopping a snag of rushes and finding steady footing on a flat rock. He caught Lina just before she hit the water and scooped her up in his arms, glimpsing, for an instant, a flash of white while holding her aloft. "Don't want to get water spots on your new dress." As he said that, his mind converted the image into information relevant to the situation, and then he started to chuckle.

"What? What's so funny?" Lina asked as she wiggled around in his arms to look up into his face.

"You _are_ wearing underwear."

Lina roughly slapped at his hands to be set down, but then started to laugh, too. "That was really bothering you, huh?"

"Well ..." As he set her on her feet, he hid his eyes and his shame at his weakness.

"You are an idiot!"

"Maybe...but I'm_ your_ idiot." Xel caught her hands, raised them to his lips, and kissed them both, making her laugh more. "You've forgiven me, right?"

"I guess, for the fake girlfriend thing, anyway, yeah."

"And for my fear of corrupting you?"

"Yeah, that was kinda sweet."

"How about the age difference?"

"Well, you _are_ kinda old. I'll have to think about that one."

He sighed and drew her arms around his neck, while encircling her in his arms. "Thank you. So..."

"So...?"

"Are you my girlfriend now?"

Lina's smile faltered. "No. You haven't proven yourself to be truly Lina-worthy, and besides, I already have a boyfriend. A-aaaand I have to talk to him, first."

"First? As in, before you and I..."

"Unless you want to share me."

Xel shook his head. "I don't share well." His watch timer buzzed. As he shut it off, he said, "Time to go back to the room, if you want another go at the mineral springs."

"You bet I do. Come on."

"Lina-worthy, eh?" he said with a faint smile as they returned to the cool lodgings.

"Yeah, and you're pretty close, this place giving you a big step up, ya know?"

"I see. So, you like going to new places, then?"

"You bet. You know about more places like this one?"

"Not just like it, but I think you'd enjoy them."

"Oh, look. Our old clothes are clean and ready for another night at the morgue," Lina said as they arrived back at their room.

"Good. I didn't want to go to work in these," Xel said as he ripped off the warm jacket and started unbuttoning his shirt.

Lina disappeared into the bathroom, where she removed her clothes and donned her robe. "Coming through!" she yelled, her hand blocking sight of whatever state of undress he was in as she raced to the French doors.

When Xel stepped into the water, Lina asked, "So what are those scars from on your ah...hip?"

Xel slipped into the water quickly. "I thought you weren't going to look."

"The scars, Xel."

"That's where I was bitten by a wolf when I was a child. Satisfied?"

"Then it was true– what you said about running from wolves in the forest?"

"Yes. Please, let's change the subject, okay?"

Lina did, but only after getting him to promise to tell her about it later. The warm water soothed away any lingering stress, like a full-body tranquilizer, and he hoped she would forget about his promise. Being nearly torn apart by trained wolves at his mother's command for a minor infraction of her rules was not a memory he wanted to relive. He submerged it along with many others, and let Lina-dreams wash them away.

They didn't stay in the water long; they had to dress, drive back to Xel's house to pick up Valgaav and Zelgadiss and then go to work for night. They listened to music on the way down in a reprise of their drive up the mountain. When they were back in town and nearly at Xel's house, Lina asked, "You realize, don't you, that you never told me how you feel about me? Not once."

"Do I need to, in words?"

"Sometimes it's nice to hear." Lina turned to Xel quickly, slapping her hand over his opening mouth. "But don't tell me now that I've mentioned it. It would be like I forced you."

She pulled her hand off when he nodded. "I wasn't going to. Not until ..." He almost said "Not until I know what that is," but his hesitation allowed Lina to fill in the missing words her own way.

"Yeah, better wait until I know what I'm going to do with you. I mean, the way you race through girlfriends, I'll bet those lovey-dovey words can just roll off your tongue, and I don't wanna hear any more of that meaningless crap."

Xel parked the car in his driveway and honked the horn once, then cautioned a quick glance at her face to see if she was smiling or not. She was not. He wasn't certain whether or not she really meant what she'd said or was simply covering up for feeling a little slighted. He hadn't told her that he loved her, and he wouldn't. It would seem like begging, especially if she decided to remain with Gourry after all. "Lina, you know I care. You know I haven't been dating anyone else this entire summer. What does that tell you?"

Zelgadiss was first to emerge, then Valgaav. They were laughing, sharing some joke and punching one another playfully.

"Why do they look so happy?" Lina asked softly.

"Because they believe that they are in love," Xel answered in an equally subdued voice.

Lina looked at him in surprise. "With each other?"

"Oh, no!" Xel laughed. "Sorry, about the way I put that. No, Zelgadiss has found himself a girl, and Valgaav has been ensorcelled by your friend Amelia, of course."

When Valgaav and Zelgadiss piled into the back seat, Valgaav was the first to ask, "So, you two make up?" which mixed up some instant animosity to squelch Lina's good mood.

"What're you getting at?" Lina remarked harshly. "We're not going to kill each other, if that's what you're wondering."

Valgaav and Zelgadiss flashed each other "It didn't work out so well for _him_" looks, but it was Zelgadiss who bravely pushed on. "Well, that's good, because we heard that Zelas' got a couple new men on her team from out of the country, and they are wiping out every team in their path."

"Oh, won't Sunday be fun, then?" Lina moaned, looking over at Xel to see how he would take the news.

Xel smiled benignly, and if the information bothered him, he gave away nothing in his expression. "From her, I wouldn't have expected less. She means to win and incur some damage along the way. We should be prepared for nasty tricks."

"Great," Zelgadiss groaned. "Do you think we can get out of another play practice tomorrow so we can come up with a plan of our own?"

"I doubt it," Valgaav answered. "It's the last one, the dress rehearsal. The play's next weekend, if you've lost track."

"Don't worry, then," Lina told them. "I have a plan, so I'll take care of things. We'll win. We've got to."

And the look she passed to Xel, touched his soul. She wanted to win for his benefit; to show how good a son Zelas had given away to Gaav's team. Lina really _did_ care, despite her vague words to the contrary, and he understood. "We will," he assured her, and smiled a genuine smile that she could see, and so, know that he grasped her meaning and cared for her in return.

End, Graveyard Shift, Chapter 20


	21. The Tournament Game

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 21 -**The Tournament Game -

"Then there is the joke about the homeopath who forgot to take his medicine and died of an overdose."

* * *

The blistering, late-summer sun was baking the aromatic blackberries right on the vines. As Lina and Gourry strode past the brambles, which lined the lakeside path to the docks, a hot dusty gust of wind wafted the sweet scent their way. "Pie...jam...cobbler," Lina murmured aloud, imagining the delicious foodstuffs laid out at her fingertips.

"Where? Oh, the smell. Yeah. We can pick some berries where we're going, if you want." Gourry swung the heavy picnic basket into a row boat, followed by bags of towels and changes of clothes, and then held out a hand to Lina. "It oughta be cooler out on the lake."

"I'm counting on it." Lina moved gingerly to her seat and waited for Gourry to loosen the rope and hop in across from her. His long hair overflowed the edge of the small boat and spilled into the water as he pushed off and began to row. Lina's eyes focused on the pale blond hair as the tips wicked up the water. Looking at his hair prevented her eyes from wandering over his broad, toned chest and strong muscles, sculpted by hours of workouts and weight training and now bulging with the effort of pulling their weight through the water.

"Whew! I think it's hotter," he said. "Not much further, though."

Lina closed her eyes against the bright sun and the even more dazzling hunk-of-a-boyfriend she had. A few minutes more and boat bumped to a halt along a sandy spit of beach. "Hey, this looks great, Gourry. Wanna swim first?"

"Sure." He hauled the boat out of the water and hid the food under the shade of some brush.

Lina yanked off her t-shirt to reveal her tiny bathing suit underneath. With a yelp, she bounded into the shallow water. Gourry was quick to follow her, splashing loudly until he was knee deep, then he dove under the cold, clear water. Together, Lina and Gourry swam and goofed around until they were cooled off and starving.

Lunch consisted of several orders of burgers and fries with a six-pack of pop. Dessert, Gourry explained, could be had at the stand next door to the boat rental office when they returned their craft. Yeah, things were good, Lina decided. They were stretched out side-by-side, stomachs full, and their long, wet hair keeping them comfortable through evaporative cooling. The early afternoon cicadas buzzed down, turning over their vibrating serenade to late afternoon hums. Birds were quiet, resting in the rushes. Nothing stirred as the sun sank behind the distant ridge line.

Lina turned her head to inspect her reclining champion. Rich golden sunlight poured over his muscular body, sticking like honey and making his skin glow. Hair the color of bleached straw spread under and around him, grazing his knees, and when he looked at her he revealed a pair of light cornflower-blue eyes. Gourry represented the best summer had to offer: sunny, warm, open, and virile.

He must have felt her eyes on him. "You all right?" he asked.

"Yeah," Lina answered. Yes, she was happy, _almost_ perfect, but was anything ever really perfect? It _could_ be, if Xel were here...

"Yeah, me, too. I could do this forever, ya know?"

Hearing Gourry's voice, and not the other man's, sent a pang of guilt through to her heart. If it were Xel lying beside her on the isolated beach, the shadows lengthening toward evening, then it would be idyllic. It would be like...Utopia. She would have to tell Gourry how she felt. It was time.

"Um, Gourry? You know, this day has been a lot of fun and all, but...well..."

Gourry sat up, leaning on an elbow, and looked into her eyes. His expression was serious, and with his free arm he reached out to touch her hair. His long fingers grazed her cheek as he moved closer. For a moment, she thought he was about to kiss her, but then he drew back, a wistful smile on his lips instead. "You don't have to make excuses, Lina. It's okay."

"It...is?"

"Yeah, I know you can't think of me as anything but a good friend. He's who you want, I know– at least right now. I can tell the way you look at him, and at me. Even so, I know that I'm what you need. I'll always be there to protect you, Lina."

"You mean that?"

"Sure do. Not that I'm thrilled to lose you, but if I have to, it's okay that it's to him, Xel, you know? Funny guy, pretty tough, 'course he's not good enough for ya, but if that's the way it's gotta be, well... I don't wanna lose you completely, so I figure, I'd best just let you go without a fight."

"Thanks, Gourry. You're one of the best there is." Lina nodded in understanding. "So, ah, you'd do something for me? Something really important, if I asked?"

"Ahhhh, I guess so. What did you have in mind?"

"Promise me first."

"Oh, well, okay, Lina. I'll do it."

"Okay, then here's what you can do for me at the tournament tomorrow..."

* * *

"Your makeup looks awesome today."

Valgaav reflexively touched one of the bronze stripes on his right cheek. "Yeah, hope it screws with their minds," he said, his grin turning feral.

"It's messing with mine. You look like a wild man from the jungles." Zelgadiss shook his head and smiled.

"Yeah, we make quite a pair." Valgaav squeezed Zelgadiss on the shoulder. "Over there. Looks like Dad's here already."

If Valgaav and Zelgadiss were tired from play rehearsal the night before, it hadn't hit them yet. They stepped into the bowling establishment to find Gaav in discussion with a slender woman of indeterminate age. From her stance, Zelgadiss could tell that she was self-assured and used to having her way. Her pale blonde hair was pinned back into a sleek chignon and she wore three inch heels, which was unusual footwear in a bowling alley. When he craned his neck for a better view, he knew she couldn't be just anybody; her beauty was arresting.

"She's _hot_," Zelgadiss whispered to his friend. "That the lady your Dad's seeing these days?"

"No," Valgaav said, his voice flat and his eyes narrowing dangerously. "That is Zelas, Xel's mother."

"N-no," Zelgadiss managed to spit out before his cousin cut him off.

"Yes. She's the dangerous agent of all that is evil. Possibly the worst person you'll ever encounter." Valgaav shoved him out of her line of sight and into a seat. "Stay here and keep out of the way. Check your stuff, whatever, but don't let that bitch get you alone for a chat."

Zelgadiss didn't like being pushed around, but he didn't want to draw Zelas' attention either, so he clammed up and busied himself with wiping off his bowling ball and listening to their voices. With his excellent hearing and Gaav's loud voice he could overhear much of what was being said. The condition of the lanes was in question.

A dressing or conditioner had been used to coat the lanes, which had an effect on the grab, the ball's reaction to the friction between the lane and ball surface. As a general rule, all lanes needed some type of protective coating to prevent burn marks in the heads from the force of the thrown balls. In the past, lane conditioner was used primarily as a protective measure, but now, under the Seyruun Justice System of Bowling, some centers legally used the lane conditioner as a tool to assist in scoring and guiding a ball to the pocket. The area of a lane that was heavily conditioned would retard the hook, and if there was heavy conditioner in the center or pocket area of the lane it could assist the ball into the pocket. It appeared that the conditioner had been applied inequitably across the lanes, and it was Gaav's opinion it was done in a manner that favored Zelas' team.

"I don't like the clean back ends on your lanes, while ours practically glow with oil," Gaav growled. For Zelas' team, this was a generally desirable lane condition in which the back ends of the lane had little or no conditioner. It helped the ball generate a larger hook with the increased friction on the clean back end surface.

"I had nothing to do with the surfacing, Gaav-dear. That's the floor-conditioning machine's fault, and it was officially inspected and sanctioned by the Seyruun Bowling Congress' official rule-making body. I only just arrived myself and took the lanes assigned to us."

Gaav continued to disagree, pointing out that there were no designated lanes, to which she simply smiled and said, "First come, first served, then. Excuse me, little-brother-dear, while I go greet my arriving team."

She moved off, leaving Gaav bristling with resentment. Xel and Lina entered, followed by Vurumagen and Eris. Eris walked directly over to where Zelgadiss was hiding. "Zel, we have to talk. Your grandfather is very upset by all your snooping around."

"Snooping, is it? If he would just tell me what I want to know, there wouldn't be a problem, would there?" Zelgadiss shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "And keep your voice down. Zelas is looking in this direction now. Shit...!"

His last comment was in reference to the two tall men that had just slithered into the bowling alley. Both were uncommonly tall and had unusual coloring. Eris let out a gasp, "Erulogos!"

"Who? Which one?"

"The sallow one with the short, spiky blue hair. He left the Volphied clan to join Zelas on the island. A ruthless man."

Zelgadiss shrugged. He didn't know what the Volphied clan was, aside from being like the Cepheid people Filia professed a faith in, but he thought the man looked frightening. "How about the pink freak?"

"Shhh... That's Sirius, his, ah, friend." Eris' mouth tightened, straining not to look terrified.

"You sure know the worst sorts," Zelgadiss said dryly. He watched Xel walk right up to Zelas and greet her. Lina shook her hand, too. So, he wondered why it was that he had to hide like a...? His eyes narrowed in anger as he answered his own question. Valgaav thought his alien appearance would shock Zelas. So much for cousinly support.

"They're professional bowlers, or at least they were doing the circuit until she hired them as guards at her penitentiary. Dangerous men and we gotta play against them. We're dead. Anyway, my point about your latest escapade... Hey, where are you going? Come right back here and listen to me, young man!"

Zelgadiss' pride was stung, and he took offense at continually being treated like a boy by everyone. Rather than engage in worthless repartee with Eris, who was his teammate after all, he stood, shook out his wiry locks, turned his back on her, pushed up his sleeves to expose as much of his blue skin as possible, and then stalked off to meet his "Aunty" Zelas, if indeed she was any relation to him.

His approach was cut off by the immensity of Gaav. "I want you to examine those lanes," Gaav boomed. He pointed at the far end of the building, about as far away from Zelas as possible. "You'll have difficulty playing if you aren't aware of the varying conditions. Take a benchmark ball and read the lanes for an oil pattern. An _experienced_ bowler understands the benchmark ball by virtue of its roll, dynamic characteristics, surface, and feel. "

Zelgadiss stared at the finger the size of a large sausage and at the lanes in question. Did the man question his expertise? Gaav, too, doubted him? Was his manhood to be tested at every turn? "Why? If the lanes get drier, then I move to the left on the approach and try to play the same target. If the lanes are oilier, then I move to the right on the approach. Not so hard."

"Unless the #$# lane machine put down so much oil conditioner that it didn't soak into the boards, so it just sits on top. As balls are thrown, the oil is subtly moved...it might be pushed left and right, or, it might be carried down further."

"So?" Zelgadiss didn't see the problem, or care.

"Usually, but not always, a house with a lot of _carrydown_ will not allow a ball to hook as much on the back ends, which means the scores will be lower."

"Oh, I didn't know that."

"Then you get your _carryoff _problem from the bowling ball soaking up the conditioner and removing it from the area of the roll; particularly common on porous and high flaring resin balls, like you use."

"Nothing I can do about that," his defenses shooting up to protect what remained of his ego.

Gaav shook his long mane of red hair. "Not true. If that happens, you need to move inside to continue to find a playable oil line. Usually not desirable, but that's what you do. Now, go check them out."

"Fine." Zelgadiss turned on a heel and marched off on his assignment. He bristled from being told what to do again, as well as from his lack of knowledge. He knew he should be grateful for Gaav's training, but he couldn't see past his own hurt pride at the moment.

Halfway to his destination, he passed the main entrance and heard a familiar voice.

"Hey, Zel!"

"Gourry? Hey, what are you doing here? Don't you have a game today?" Zelgadiss asked, relieved to have a diversion from his lane-study task.

In fact, Gourry's entire team had just arrived, minus the coach. Their game had been cancelled, he said, so they all agreed to bring backup balls and support for Gaav's team. Sylphiel was next to push past Gourry and greet Zelgadiss with a warm embrace and kiss; truly balm for his damaged pride. Smiling into his eyes she practically purred, "Isn't this going to be great?"

"It certainly is going to be more fun with you here," he said, grinning. "I'll take those bowling bags."

"Thanks." She let him carry two bowling balls she had brought with her. "What were you doing over here all by yourself?"

Zelgadiss proceeded to explain the "complex lane conditioning problem," as he had had it explained to him and impressed her with his vast store of knowledge.

"You are sooo smart, Zelly. I never would have thought of stuff like that. We'd better look over your team's lanes right away."

While Sylphiel and Zelgadiss walked away head-to head and absorbed in one another and their task, Amelia ripped through the developing crowd hunting for Valgaav. She spotted him standing, arms crossed over his chest, scowling ten feet away from Zelas, who was introducing her son to the two new members of her team. Amelia ran over, squealing as she wrapped Valgaav in a tight hug. "Guess who?"

Gaav raised two bushy red eyebrows in wonder at the young girl encroaching on his son's personal space. This was not the time or the place for non-serious affairs, he felt. He expected his son to rebuff her intentions, and was shocked to see that he did not. Valgaav, in fact, reciprocated with a deep and probing kiss, which damned well had no place at the tournament game, Gaav believed. The formidable man strode a few steps closer, and then growled, "Son...?"

Valgaav looked up from Amelia, eyes bright with excitement and shiny liner. "Hi, Dad. You remember Amelia, right? Her father coached the other Seyruun team we played at the first of the season."

Amelia peeled herself from her boyfriend's grasp and held out a hand to his father. "Nice to see you again, Mr. Rubyeye. We played this other team not long ago. We learned how to fight back at a few of their dirty tricks, and now we are here to right the wrongs that they are certain to inflict upon your team and see that justice is served!"

Gaav's mouth hung open, wordless. One look at his son's eyes, however, and he could tell that Valgaav had found happiness, somehow, in this perky little girl. She had come to lend his son support, so how could he not love her, too? "Well, I can see my son is pleased to have you here, my dear. Let's hope that he can also keep a clear head in his game."

Valgaav felt the blood rush to his face, now shy with everyone staring at him. "I can do that..."

Not to be nonplused by Gaav, Amelia boldly continued. "Oh, he will have no problem concentrating. This game is very important in order to win the championship. I just know you can do it, too!"

"I wish everyone shared your optimism," Gaav said with a gruffness belying his growing affection for her. His attention was torn between his son's distracting new girlfriend and the tense exchange between Xel and his mother.

"I don't believe you've met your replacements," Zelas said to her son. Without waiting for his response, she continued. "This is Erulogos and Sirius."

"Should I be flattered to think it takes two to cover for my absence?" Xel said with humor, although his smile did not reach his eyes. He hadn't wanted to begin a lengthy conversation with his mother, especially one requiring his full attention, when it was Lina and his relationship with her that was foremost on his mind.

"It was fortunate that I acquired them both when I did; Noonsa's untimely demise left a second position to be filled."

"Are you meaning the in the labs or for the tournament, or both?"

"Oh, both, partially. Sirius is a competent lab worker, but requires extensive training. He's not ready as a replacement for even someone of Noonsa's abilities. Erulogos can dispose of the dead, but I've found him far more suited for guard duty in the penitentiary. I wasn't expecting either of them to take over your job; I still shall require your services, when this season is over. The trade with my brother was only temporary, as you recall. And, as far as their bowling abilities are concerned, you'll get a chance to see for yourself."

"I guess I shall." His eyes cast about for Lina, who had greeted Zelas politely and then escaped further inquisition.

"Looking for your little friend? She's over there schmoozing with the blond Adonis creature. That man doesn't like you very much, does he?" Pleased to have made Xel frown and lose his smug confidence, she quickly moved on to the topic of interest to her. "So, tell me, how is work going?"

Xel knew that she was not asking him about the mortuary business. She wanted some indication from him that the information she had sent him to gather was in hand. He, however, preferred to be evasive, playing the role of the secretive trickster for her benefit, and annoyance. He pushed back his worries about Lina, and replied, "Quite well. We've been doing quite a bit of crime scene investigative work lately, and I have enjoyed it immensely."

"Have you? And have you uncovered anything specific about a particular person of interest?"

"Oh, yes, I have, indeed."

She smiled, thinking that she knew what he meant and that he had secured the necessary information on Zelgadiss. "How wonderful. I should like you to come home for a visit. Soon. Bring your friends for a holiday."

He returned her smile, elated to have obtained the hoped for, but not expected, invitation that he needed to complete his own plan. "How very generous of you, Mother. I shall do that. I expect that my friends would all like a short vacation before summer is gone. I have to go; I see Gaav's looking nervous."

"He always does, dear. We'll speak more later."

Gaav's mood darkened as he observed the mother and son exchange pleasantries. Their smiles at parting struck him as truly devious and filled him with foreboding. He never fully trusted his nephew not to throw the game, and now he felt that Xel and Zelas had just sealed their doom.

With that in mind, Gaav called for the game to commence. Vurumagen launched the game with a messy strike, gaining him a rousing cheer from his teammates. Gaav's grim countenance softened slightly. Perhaps things would go better than he thought. He nodded approvingly at Vurumagen, who looked resigned as he moved to sit beside Xel. Next to the serious-looking Xel sat Zelgadiss, who was absorbed in watching the competition while awaiting his turn next.

"I know those two...interesting newcomers," Vurumagen said in a low voice.

Xel glanced down the line to where the tall men sat, both staring back at him. "Erulogos and Sirius?"

"Yes," Vurumagen answered, his face expressionless as usual. "I've met them clubbing. Sirius is charming, but his friend is a sadomasochistic bondage-dom. _Very_ vicious, I'm afraid. I hope it doesn't carry over into his game. Damn, he's good, isn't he?"

Xel agreed, although without any hope of his own. His eyes remained concealed by his bangs. After a few moments, he chanced a quick peek at where Lina sat talking to Gourry and Filia. He was dying to creep closer.

"Don't do it," Vurumagen warned him. "Give the lady some space. And don't look so pathetic. You're our anchor, Xel. Oh, take it easy out there, Zelgadiss. Your lane is the nastiest, for some reason."

Xel closed his eyes, shutting the windows to his thoughts from prying eyes, and set his jaw.

"Reverse block!" Gaav groaned as he slumped into his seat. He had been too soon in judgment. It was an inauspicious start, after all.

Zelgadiss had sent his ball into a very difficult lane condition where the boards closer to the gutter were heavily oiled, while those in the center were dry. When the ball hit the center on his first turn, it hooked too much and rode high, and left a tough spare. He adjusted his throw more to the right the next time so that the ball hit the oil and missed the pocket. The entire shot morphed as a pin flew across the deck without falling; changing what was perhaps an easy spare into a much harder spare. "Ugh!" he groaned as hopes for a win morphed, as well, into a loss.

It wasn't long before the first of the nasty tricks was played on Lina. Her first roll left a pair of pins standing, which she dispatched cleanly for a spare. She wasn't bowling her best, but she was a little stiff and needed a little warming up. On her next throw, she lost her balance when, on her release, the ball clung to her fingertips. Gravity worked the ball loose as she fell head-long to the floor. The ball dropped heavily to the wood planks, then rolled, stricken, into the alley.

"Foul!" shouted an ugly, wall-eyed member of Zelas' team. "She touched the foul line when delivering the ball. Oh! What a beautiful morrr-ning! Oh! What a beautiful day..." he began to sing.

Lina considered throttling the creature from her seat on the floor, a position which, unfortunately, left her legs crossing the restraining line between the lane and the approach-- a foul. Gourry was at her side in two great strides. "You okay, Lina?"

"I gotta beautiful feeeee-ling..." the offensive opponent belted out with gusto. He topped off his act with a dance step, and looked ridiculous.

"Damned fingers got stuck..." she grumbled.

"I'll bet that guy put something inside the finger holes." Gourry picked up her _FireBall_ from the return and peered inside.

In the background he could hear the guy still singing. "Everything's go-ing my way!"

Gourry wished he could shut the fool up, and then decided that since Zelgadiss had the least tolerance for ridiculousness, he would let him take care of the loud-mouth later. _He _had Lina's bowling ball to repair, first.

In the meantime, Xel reached Lina and offered her a hand up. "That was a nasty fall."

"I'm fine. Just get me a new ball," Lina told him, brushing his hands away. "Who is that asshole?"

"His name's Rahanimu, brother to Noonsa." It bothered him that Gourry had come to her aid first. He was certain that Lina and Gourry had spent the prior day together, but hopefully not the night, and he wondered what had come of it. He had nearly called her house in the morning before the game to ask, but it was she who had called him.

"Beep! I'm home now, but leave a message and I'll call when I'm out."

"Gods Xel...you with your damned phone messages," Lina had grumbled. "Pick up the phone!"

"L-lina! Hi, ah, you need a ride to the game?"

"Yeah, I'm ready any time," she had said in a clipped fashion before hanging up.

Xel had wanted the freedom to take off after the game with her, if possible, so he had immediately told his roommates to go on ahead to the tournament game without him. Xel had grabbed his bowling ball bags and rushed to pick her up without delay. On his short drive to her house he had come to realize how desperate he was to know what had transpired between Gourry and her. It had become crucial to him to know if she had broken up with Gourry or not. When she had jumped into the seat beside him, he had been sorely tempted to ask how her day had gone, but had decided against it. She had seemed so somber at the time. Turning onto the highway en route to the game, he had been oddly discomfited by her silence, and so had refrained from being the first to bring up the topic for as long as possible.

"It will be all right," he had said, hoping to have sounded both strong and comforting, and yet not having said too much either, leaving the meaning open-ended.

"What will? Oh, you mean the game today. Yeah, we'll do fine."

"Will we?"

"I made sure of it. Don't worry. Now be quiet and let me think."

Xel had borne her silence bravely, although it had required an intense mental effort to do so, which was fine as long as he wasn't trying to concentrate on successfully doing anything else. However, now that they were beginning the tournament game, his uncertainty about their relationship was making him miserable and distracting him. Pulling his game together in order to play his best was further complicated by the presence of several unsettling members of the opposing team, Rahanimu being one and Erulogos and Sirius being numbers two and three. And there was Gourry as well. He had no real reason to show up even if his game had been canceled, which Xel found doubtful. What was worse, Gourry wasn't acting the part of the ex-boyfriend. In fact, he had marshaled his team to come support Lina's and was hovering around her incessantly.

"Noonsa's bro-brother...?" she gasped. Lina's eyes shot up to Xel's face in a silent entreaty. "Does he know about our involvement with Noonsa's death?"

Xel shook his head slightly, communicating only to her. "No. He doesn't even suspect we killed his brother."

"Get her a house ball," shouted the same wall-eyed man in an insulting manner. "She's throwing them anyway." He continued singing the familiar tune, a little more off-key. "All them cattle are standin' like statuuuuuues.."

The house ball provided by the center to its customers was usually, but not always, of poorer quality than the modern equipment, usually polyester or hard urethane, not resin. He was implying that Lina couldn't do worse with a cheap ball. The slight made Lina's blood boil, and his singing was giving her a headache.

"How's my ball coming along?" she asked Gourry. Lina was still waiting for him to fix her ball. "I can't blow any more time waiting or I get another foul!"

"Better get another, Lina. You can have one of mine."

"Oh, Lina, I have just the ball for you!" Sylphiel said. "Stay there!"

But there was no time to wait for Sylphiel. Lina was forced to use the first ball she could find and rushed her approach. Lina had thrown what she thought was a pretty decent shot on a crowned condition, but then the ball began to hook back, hitting the area of more oil, and failed to finish strongly, leaving two pins standing.

"Bumped the oil line!" Gaav groaned.

Besides the towering Erulogos and Sirius and the lounge-singer-wannabe Rahanimu, Zelas' team also contained three players from Xel's previous team: Kanzel, Mazenda, and Tiiba.

"Hey, I know that guy, aaah, Tiiba. He worked for my grandfather, in his lab."

Xel spun around to find Zelgadiss at his elbow. "Say what? Really? Are you sure it's the same guy? I worked with him in Zelas' autopsy lab."

Zelgadiss frowned. "Just how many men with a mop of white hair named Tiiba do you think there are? Obviously it's the same guy."

"Well, then, I guess we found another link between them," Xel replied sourly. "Damn, he picked up that spare!"

Eris was next in the line up. Her ball hit the oiled lane surface skate-skidding too much and too far before it hooked toward the pocket. With considerable skill, but bad luck, she picked up all but one of the pins, missing the spare. She sat down grumbling about the lane conditions, and she wouldn't be the last. So far they were behind Zelas' team in points.

"That puts you into the clutch situation, son," Gaav told Valgaav. "You respond well to pressure, so I know I can count on you. Give us a big ball."

Valgaav's accomplished throw sent the ball riding the oil line into the pocket and managed to turn in a respectable strike in the end. The team cheered the best roll yet, pleased with the reverse in their bad luck. Nevertheless, his form was not good, which his father proceeded to point out, and he would have to correct it before his next turn.

Xel, the anchor, was the last player to roll in the team competition. Gaav gave him the position out of respect for his calm maturity under pressure, but Zelas had felt differently when Xel had played for her. She had always played him first, saying that to be last was beneath him somehow. Xel was acutely aware of her opinion, and so was hurt when he heard her derogatory remark aimed at him.

"Don't worry, here comes the anchor that holds down his team, preventing them from moving ahead."

The silvery laugh that followed cut like a dagger, causing him to lose focus at a critical time. His first roll left a nasty split. On his next, he made the spare.

"Covered the five pin," Gaav announced with relief. "Break! I call for a break!"

Zelas agreed, and why not? Her team had the lead. A win seemed firmly in place.

"What's Sylphiel doing?" Valgaav asked Zelgadiss.

"I'm not sure, but it looks like she's feeding the enemy," Zelgadiss replied. Sylphiel had carried a couple sacks over to the opposing team, and was now passing around plates of rich butter cookies, juicy meatball sandwiches, and thick slices of pound cake that she had made.

Lina was appalled. "Shouldn't she be feeding _us_?"

"She must have some reason," he answered, hoping that she did. "I'll ask her."

And she was happy to explain when she was out of earshot of Zelas' team. "I know it seems strange. I mean, I love a good meal like everyone else, but if you want to perform your best in bowling, or any other sport, you have to monitor what you eat before you take to the lanes. If you are bowling in a tournament, try to avoid anything greasy or high in cholesterol. It may taste good, but in no time it will kick in, and you'll be sluggish, which is not good for a bowler. Instead, we should try to eat light, like maybe pasta with light dressing and a salad. That way your body will have the energy it needs, and still be able to keep the brain focused on bowling. Here, I made you guys some appropriate snacks."

Lina frowned at her meager nutrient bar of oatmeal and dried fruit and the plastic containers of raw vegetable sticks, but she ate them just the same, knowing that what Sylphiel had told them was right.

"Okay, so things don't seem so good right now, but we've got some tricks of our own, right Mr. Gourry?" Amelia said. She was ready to charge up the troops and get them to rise to the occasion, but was it possible or was it already too late?

* * *

Gourry cleared his throat, "Well, ah... there's a few things I noticed." He dragged his arsenal over and pulled out a couple balls. He began a slow methodical explanation about how the right ball for the surface could make a difference. "I'm talkin' coverstock, the material that makes up the outer shell of the ball and gives it the hardness, texture, and shine we see. First, ya got yer 'aggressive type'; meaning it is made of a high friction material that gives the ball a large hook when it encounters dry boards. Since you've got one damned heavily conditioned lane up front but with an arid pin area, Varu...vru...er..."

"Vurumagen," the man supplied.

"Um, er...yeah. That's it," Gourry said apologetic smile. "I'd suggest you give this ball a try and see if it don't help bring your ball into the pocket."

"I'll give it a try, sure," the older man said appreciatively.

"Now, this here one's called a 'medium', which displays less tendency to hook, and this other one is a 'mellow', which is the lowest friction material and the least sensitive to dry lanes. Since none of you've got that problem, I don't think you need one of those. Ah, I think you Miss, ah, Eris, got a mellow ball, so you might wanna trade for this medium one of Amelia's, or, better yet, one like this reactive resin ball. See, it's got this surface that grabs the lane sooner, resulting in more and earlier hook than other coverstock surfaces. It reacts much more to differing lane surfaces, hooking more on drier lanes and skidding more in oil. "

"Wow, yeah, sure." Eris held the new ball, testing its weight and enjoying its feel. She believed it could solve her problems.

Lina was grinning. Gourry was in his element, sharing his expertise. This was going to work, it had to. Her idea was for Gourry to bring their friends from his team to help out her team. His team could win or lose; it didn't matter– not like this game. At Lina's bequest, Gourry arranged for his team's game to be canceled. Lina needed him, and he was there for her. She urged him to say more with a comradely punch. "Got something for Zelly in one of those bags?"

"Ah, no, not really, but... Sure, ah...Zel, you were having problems with a serious oil line. As the lane was played, oil got removed from the area of heaviest play, but there was still some oil on the edges of the tracked area. Okay, so the most inside edge is the oil line. You need to keep adjusting your attack line to the pocket to find the oil line so that your ball will not hook too early."

"That makes sense, maybe," Zelgadiss said. His attention was diverted, however, by the antics of Rahanimu. Was he disco dancing? Between him and the re-appearance of Tiiba as an employee of Zelas, he was too distracted to attend to Gourry's wisdom.

Regardless, Gourry was still on a roll. "Now, I think we oughta make use of the polishing kit I brought, while we got time. We can gloss 'em up to lessen the friction between the ball and the lane; the goal being for the ball to hook later and less." Gourry pull out a few bottles and rags, as Zelgadiss moved off on a goal of his own.

Zelgadiss had noticed that Rahanimu had stopped his dancing and was, instead, looking his way, as if he wanted to speak to him. Standing with him was Tiiba. Perhaps it was time to pay Rezo's ex-employee a visit say hello, he thought. If nothing else, if he could get the other guy to stop his annoying singing and larking about, then he would have accomplished something.

What he didn't know was that Zelas covertly luring him over. Zelas had speculated about what the grandson of Rezo might be like, whether he would suit her needs. She had grown impatient with how her son had executed his orders. He had taken an exorbitant amount of time so far. Xel's brief update had left her more or less satisfied with his progress, but she couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet Zelgadiss and impress him with her power. To that end, she instructed Tiiba to demonstrate his usefulness, using Rahanimu's obnoxious qualities, if necessary, to fish for Zelgadiss' attention and reel him in closer.

On closer inspection, Zelas could clearly make out his blue, scarred skin and silvery hair sparkling from the overhead lights as he walked. She was shocked at his appearance. That disfigured creature couldn't possibly be Rezo's heir, she thought in horror. She was certain that a terrible mistake had been made either by her son or, gods forbid, by herself.

Tiiba was keen to rise in the ranks under Zelas. He had a reputation for being squeamish, sometimes called 'The Big Chicken' when he had worked for Rezo, and so had his work cut out for him if he was to impress her with his manipulative methods. He noticed her reaction at once; up close this new Zelgadiss gave him the creeps, too. Tiiba didn't understand why Zelas placed so much value on this weird kid-- a preening, snot-nosed kid as he had remembered him– but he was determined to show her that he could follow orders.

Ever since they had arrived for the tournament, Tiiba had been goading Rahanimu into a jealous frenzy. This was not difficult to do. Like everyone who worked for Zelas, Rahanimu wanted Zelas' favor in order to raise, or in his situation retain, his position in her organization. Each new addition to the 'family' working for Zelas meant a possible alteration to the hierarchy, and his status was on shaky ground now that his more valuable brother was dead and had been replaced by the other two imposing men, Erulogos and Sirius—or so he had been led to believe by his new buddy, Tiiba. Zelgadiss could be the next threat to his security, if his employer brought him on board. Tiiba assured Rahanimu that to insure his job with Zelas, he had only to make Zelgadiss look a bad as possible. "Go ahead. Tell him," Tiiba urged his teammate.

"If you look _that_ way because of some kind of stupid _acciden_t you got yourself into, then it's _obvious_ that on your family tree..._you're_ the _sap_," Rahanimu taunted Zelgadiss.

Two other teammates, Kanzel and Mazenda, who were also standing close by, overheard his cruel jib and laughed. Zelgadiss was struck dumb. He was angry and, with Xel's elegant mother looking on, embarrassed. His blood rose, flushing his face to his ear tips; he was far too flustered to come up with a witty comeback or suitable caustic reply, so he turned abruptly and dashed off.

"Mr. Zelgadiss," Amelia called to him.

"What!" he snapped. At one time he might have passed her by with a curt "Later," but not any longer. Since he'd grown fond of Sylphiel, and appreciative of her caring nature, he was able to recognize the same quality in Amelia. She was an important part of Valgaav's life now, too, which meant he should be respectful, regardless. "Ah... sorry."

"I saw you over there with them...didn't go so well, huh? Well, I've got just the thing you need. Now, I warn you, I won't take no for an answer."

Zelgadiss froze as she grasped his wrist and strapped on a girlish pink bracelet with a shiny blue gemstone weighing it heavily to one side. "Wha...?"

"I'm lending you my lucky bracelet to protect you from the evil lady and to make every throw of the bowling ball the very best that it can be!" Amelia gave him a big smile.

She looked so pleased; he didn't wish to hurt her feelings if he refused the garish gift. It may have been wishful thinking, but he tried to dispose of it as politely as possible. "Oh, well... thanks, but shouldn't you be giving this to Valgaav instead?"

"Oh no, he felt the magic would be stronger if the two people he loved most wore them. They were gifts from him. Lucky charms. They really work!"

Zelgadiss looked from Amelia's shining blue eyes down at his arm and back, then glanced up, catching a glimpse of Valgaav snorting back a laugh in the distance. "I'm going to kill him," Zelgadiss thought to himself. "We'll see, won't we?" he said aloud to Amelia as he pulled his sleeve over the gaudy bracelet, hiding it from view. He decided to give it the ultimate test later, when he would take on Rahanimu or Tiiba, or both.

Meanwhile, Filia took a seat next to Xel. "Hi."

He looked up, his expression one of mild surprise. "Yes? Enjoying the game so far?"

"I noticed that you guys were paying the other team too much attention."

"Oh, did you?" His disinterest couldn't have been greater, and he didn't bother to hide it.

She very nearly stood and left, but she had an observation to share and Gourry thought it was important that she begin with Xel, because he had more influence over what the other players on his team thought and did than anyone else. She drew her breath, holding back an acerbic remark with remarkable composure, and said calmly, "I just wanted to say that if you watch the pros, you'll notice that many of them don't even watch their opponent bowling. After all, this isn't football or tennis, where your actions directly affect your opponent's. Bowling is a game of you against a lane and ten pins, and for many people, watching another bowler get lucky can disrupt their game. So if you tend to get too wrapped up in what the other guy is doing, like Zelgadiss in particular does, then just don't watch. Instead, our team will do the watching and advise you of any actions of importance, while your team concentrates on your own game and ignores other team."

He was not prepared for her intelligent, thoughtful assessment, and barely knew how to respond. "Er... thanks. I'll pass that along, however...that's not my biggest problem." Now, he hadn't intended to add that last part. It just slipped out. He couldn't get Lina, and what it was that she had decided to do about Gourry, out of his mind. "Um, never mind."

Filia guessed that his problems went deeper than the game, and proceeded to do some digging. "So, I'll ask anyway: What _is_ your biggest problem?"

"I'd rather not say," he muttered, but his treacherous eyes swept over to where Lina was talking to Gourry and Gaav.

"Lina, huh?"

He smiled wanly. "Lina, yes."

"Yeah." Filia sat a moment longer, then having nothing to say, got up. If the problem involved Lina, then it was Gourry who should talk to him.

Gaav was signaling that the break was over and was giving his pep talk. "Fortune smiles, then betrays. You win, you lose. But what is going on in their heads? The important thing for any serious bowler to keep in mind is that there is always an element of luck in bowling. Sometimes the best thrown shots do not strike, sometimes your opponent is hitting everywhere but the pocket and knocking all the pins down, or breaking up splits that you are leaving. When the chips seem stacked against you, how you deal with that internally many times affects how you approach the next shot. Now, I want you to go back out there and play ball like I know you can."

Vurumagen started off the next round of bowling with his new _aggressive_ ball. It was a different feel for him-- new, but not bad, and he brought in another spare. "It'll be a strike next time," he said with assurance, "now that I've got a feel for it."

Zelgadiss would have had a strike, he insisted, had "that damned Rahanimu kept his damned mouth shut." It was time to test the power of the lucky charm bracelet. Zelgadiss had had enough of the lounge-singing, disco-dancing bowler. He picked up his gear bag, hopped over his chair, and marched over to where Rahanimu was singing. "You think you're quite the performer, don't you?" Zelgadiss remarked.

"I am. I got my bowling arm and my dancing feet– I got all the moves, and I'm going to tell you _all_ about it each time I make a strike." He demonstrated with a disco dance step and twirl.

"Why don't you take your turn now, and show me just how good you are. Hey, be careful! Stay away from me," Zelgadiss warned.

"Owwweee!"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Zelgadiss said in his ironic tone of voice. His gear bag contained one very heavy bowling ball, which painfully crushed the other player's foot when it landed on it. "I lost my grip when you bumped my arm."

"You... This won't stop me from bowling you into the dirt, you freak! We'll beat you and beat you bad!"

Zelgadiss shook his head and walked away. "As long as it shuts you up," he muttered.

"Just you watch!" Rahanimu shouted. He took up his ball, limped as far as his release point, and then sent it spiraling at a high speed down the lane.

"Looks like fence posts!" Lina laughed at the widely space pins that remained. Watching him miss making the strike made her feel lots better. Indeed, to her further satisfaction, his attempt to make the spare was bad also. His missed throw sent the ball between widely separated pins hitting nothing but air. "Field goal!" she shouted gleefully arms held straight up over her head.

It was Lina's turn next, but her bowling ball was still sticky and she hadn't found another that suited her. Sylphiel shot out of her seat, "Oh, my! I just remembered why I dragged this with me!" It only took her a moment to scoot one of her ball bags to Lina. "I just got this ball this summer to try out and it's too heavy for me. I just don't have the power to make it work, but your swing is amazing. I'll bet you can do something really impressive with it."

"Sylphiel! This is a _Dragon Slaver_!" Lina gasped. She'd wanted one for years, but they were far too expensive for her income. "Let me show you what this can do."

Xel started to stop her, but seeing the odd gleam in her eye, stepped back, and simply cautioned her with a word, "Control."

Gourry advised, "Don't let it get away from you."

Lina caressed the ball, whispered a word of affection to it, and then attacked the pins with an explosive throw. She handled it perfectly and blew them away. "Gottem all!" Nothing could stop Lina now.

It was Valgaav's turn next, and his father had one last gift to bestow. "Son, I know you've had your eye on this one for some time, but...well, I think your man enough for it now."

Gaav pushed his well-worn bowling bag to Valgaav. "Go on. Open it up."

"Your super_ Demon-Dragon-King _power ball to combat the bad lanes! Thanks, Dad!" With his customary perfect form, Valgaav threw the ball of his dreams for a roaring, and highly gratifying, strike.

After that the game was anticlimactic. As Filia had suggested, they largely ignored Zelas' team. They put aside their personal issues and played their own games as best a possible. As a result, it appeared that the game was starting to turn around for Gaav's team. Even the lanes opened up, becoming easier to control and make good shots as the event progressed. Both teams were scoring well, but Gaav's team gained points with each round, rapidly evening the point totals until it was tied with Xel up for the last shot. All they needed now was for Xel to get his groove back.

Gourry approached Xel cautiously. Their last interaction had ended badly, with Gourry punching Xel's jaw, bruising it severely, and, effectively, disabling his sexual pursuit of Lina for a weekend. Gourry had expected Xel to get back at him, but so far he hadn't made any personal attacks, which was fine as long as Xel didn't choose now to be the time and place for a fight. He was done with fighting anyway. It was time to throw in the towel and let Lina take matters into her own hands. He would always be there for her. Someday she'd grow tired of Xel and he'd be there. He understood her need for excitement and challenges, and that Xel had plenty of that to offer her, but Xel wasn't the guy for her, Gourry knew, because he was. Lina would come to understand that someday. She would.

"Uh, Xelloss?"

"Yes? Don't think you're going to hit me again, because I promise, I won't let you get away with it another time."

"No, I just wanted to tell you that, in case you were wondering, 'cause I don't think Lina'd think to say anything, ah... that's is, you see, yesterday she and I broke up."

Xel blinked. "You did?"

Gourry nodded. "It's you she thinks she wants. Treat her good."

"I fully intend to."

"Good. Well, that's all I wanted to say."

"Ah, Gourry. Why did you tell me this?"

"Because I'm hoping you'll do you what you have to do so your team wins. Winning this is real important to Lina." Gourry's eyes misted over. He blinked back tears then added, "This is all for Lina, what I've done. Just so you know." He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, and then left Xel with his private thoughts.

Xel stood and pondered the man's words, adding another layer to his understanding of just what it meant to love someone. "How very gallant of you, Gourry," he said to himself. The man would be a valuable resource in the upcoming undertaking he had in mind. Gourry was bound by loyalty to both Zelgadiss and Lina, was monstrously strong, and not clever enough to out-think any of them. Perhaps they could become friends someday. Friends. Xel's thoughts returned to the here and now. Gourry had said enough. He had finally said something of importance to Xel, the kind of information that could alter the future. In a voice so low no one could hear, Xel muttered, "Thanks for telling me about Lina. You are a good man, Mr. Gabriev."

Xel picked up his ball and smiled. After an hour of grief, the game would all be over in an instant. He took aim, wound up, stepped, and released a wicked spinning ball. All ten pins were swept from the lane, falling helter-skelter, some flying several feet before landing on their sides. In the end, they all found a way to fall down. A strike. Gaav's team won the game by a single point. Their team shouted and cheered and shared hugs, thanks, and congratulations with Gourry's team. Gaav broke away to shake hands with a sour-faced Zelas. Behind him, Xel was quick to do the same.

When Zelas was within earshot of her son, she drew him close and hissed a warning in his ear. "You have won today, but if you don't complete your job, you'll have a poor reception when you come home. That can't be the young man you were to watch. He looks nothing like his grandfather. You had better not fail me."

Before he could reply, there was a disruption as two newcomers pushed into the crowd. Martina and Zangalus had finally joined the rest of their teammates. They had run a few blocks from where they'd had parked, and were now panting. "We're... h-here! H-hey, if it's true that we are here to help others, like... what are the others doing here? Say, where are you going? _You're leaving? _**_It's over! _**How can _that_ be? You said it started at four and it's four and we're here!"

"I said it was over at four," Gourry replied simply.

"I told you he said that," Zangalus said in a pompous manner.

"I thought he said 'go over at four'!" she wailed and tore at her hair in frustration.

Xel had to put space between himself and his mother, and fast before his anger overwhelmed him. Without a word, he stormed past the disturbed Martina, and out of the building, Lina at his heels. Lina had intended to pull him aside and invite him over to her place for a talk, and so, had followed him when he had approached his mother. Lina had been close enough to overhear Zelas' remark and had noticed his subsequent exit. She followed Xel outside the building. "Hey, Xel! Hold on."

He wouldn't have stopped for anyone else.

"I heard what Zelas said to you. Aren't you afraid she might disinherit you and you'd lose everything, not just your job with her?"

It wasn't what he had expected for Lina to say. He had hoped that she might tell him why she'd been so quiet all day and why she hadn't told him about the breakup, leaving that for Gourry to do. He had given her plenty of time and space, he thought. He had enough self-respect not to ask her outright, so he continued to hold out in the eventuality that she might get around to it, eventually. Pretending nothing was different or mattered, he replied, "No, my father would never let her. He is a little higher in the hierarchy than her and as such exerts control and has the final say."

"Hierarchy? What do you mean by that?"

"Ah," he looked around cautiously. "We should talk about this someplace else, later. Besides, there is something she wants and she believes she can manipulate me still to get her what she wants."

"What's that?"

"Zelgadiss. Rezo's direct descendant whom she believes contains the magical DNA with the secrets to longevity. That's all I can say here."

"So, she wants Zelly. That's...dumb." Lina was finished with that topic for the time being. "What is it that you want then?"

His face softened and he met her eyes. "Do you have to ask?"

"Well, I am in the market for a new boyfriend..." she said coyly.

"How nice. Might I suggest me? I'll make your dreams come true."

Lina smiled. "That's what I like about you. You know, when Gourry and I speak, it's in the present tense, but with you... we speak of the future."

Xel laughed. He clasped her hands in each of his and swung her around gently. "Oh...

_ Sweet as candy_

_ Strong as brandy_

_ That's who I dream-a _

_ Lina, Lina..." _

He sang the silly ditty over and over until Gaav and the rest of the friends poured out of the building. Gaav shouted in his thunderous voice: "Party at Madiran's. On me!"

Lina, who was ravenous and loved a party, agreed with an enthusiastic, "Oh yeah! Come on, let's go!"

End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 21


	22. The Plan

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 22 -**The Plan-

"Love is grand... Divorce is a hundred grand."

* * *

Gaav was having a great time, but he had a late night date with a lady friend, so he was winding up the party. "One last pizza to the table over there," he said, pointing at the one with Gourry and Lina in a neck-to-neck race to see who could eat the most. Xelloss was keeping score and Filia was badgering him to stop all the foolishness before someone got hurt—namely herself, as flying elbows and gnashing teeth kept coming a little too close for comfort.

"So, has Lina made up her mind which one is her boyfriend? It's too late to call either just a summer fling," Sylphiel asked.

Amelia shook her head. "I think so, but it's hard to tell, isn't it? I don't believe in flings; they're unjust. Someone always gets hurt. To be safe, you should never begin your summer romance until the last day of summer!"

Zelgadiss, who had a couple beers from the ever-full pitcher Gaav ordered, thought what Amelia had said was very funny. He snorted a mouthful of beer, coughed, and laughed at the same time, making a spectacle of himself.

Gaav wondered what Zelgadiss was going to do in a few weeks, come fall. He wasn't sure the kid could take care of himself in school in Atlas City. He was beginning to think his son should go back to school, if only to watch out for his less mature cousin.

"Zelly! Don't laugh! I know you believe in the virtues of true love and constancy," Amelia said, looking at him earnestly.

"Sure, love is grand..." Zelgadiss began as he attempted to compose himself.

"But divorce is a hundred grand," Gaav put in unexpectedly, causing Zelgadiss to explode into uncontrollable giggles and hiccups. "Well, it's time for me to move on, kids. The tab's paid up, so if you order more, the rest's on you, don't forget."

They all thanked him for the coaching season and for the party. Vurumagen rose to leave, promising another great season the next time, and making a special effort to thank Gourry for the delightful bowling ball he had given him. Eris used the opening to excuse herself, and then quietly took her leave as well.

Zangalus had been unable to goad Xelloss into a fit of jealousy, try as he might. As soon as he noticed Xel's arm snake around Lina's shoulders, he figured the man was fair game. "Don't expect much out of her," Zangalus said in an attempt to sound in collusion with Xel's plans. "She's real uptight."

Xelloss smiled. He had tried to ignore the previous comments, but now he had to respond. "I find her deliciously passionate, but then I know how to treat a woman. Maybe as you gain experience, you'll find your taste improves."

Martina, who was listening in on every conversation, at least partially, heard what Xel had said. "There's nothing wrong with Zangy's taste. In fact his family buys the very Angus beef from a ranch that feeds them this special diet, and he says there's nothing better. Come on, sweetie, let's go see a movie or something entertaining."

Martina and Zangalus swept out of the nearly empty restaurant in a huff, much like they had swept into the bowling alley earlier. Lina's eyes followed them out. Before they were out of hearing distance she commented, "Yeah, and she grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli and he was room-temperature prime beef."

Zelgadiss nearly lost his balance he laughed so hard. He had no troubles bothering him this night. Sylphiel was at his side, promising further close encounters that night. The tournament was over and they had been triumphant. He felt especially good about his playing and how he had taken out the opposition. The play was the next night and he was looking forward to it and to having his friends watching in the audience. Everything was wonderful. Somehow he'd go to school in Atlas City and still see Sylphiel, _somehow_.

In the meantime, he was enjoying himself and the company of his friends old and new. Lina was one of the old. "Yeah, you might be right, Lina. But she just says stupid stuff like that because she's so envious of you, you and your ...ah...good looks...and all..." he tumbled over his words as he realized what he was saying. Complimenting girls, and Lina in particular, was not something he felt skilled doing, in particular, after having fumbled into it through a beer-induced haze.

Lina twisted around to see if Zelgadiss was okay. Before she could say anything, Gourry jumped in. "Yeah, she has pretty eyes... like two red circles with black spots in the middle."

Lina's head turned back to stare incredulously at Gourry head on. "Circles...?"

"Well, sure," Xel chuckled as he got into the fun, squeezed he shoulder gently, and said, "So let's see... Gourry– he is as tall as a 6 foot 5 inch tree." He was putting off his last task, hoping Filia would leave before he began.

Gourry grinned. "Pretty close, Xel. Six foot 6 inches."

Zelgadiss laughed more, wiping his eyes, while Lina just shook her head. "You are all overworked. Maybe it's time to go."

"No! Please, just a minute. First, I'd like to extend an invitation to all of you to a party after the play– on Wolfpack Island." Xelloss was leaning forward scanning the faces for their reactions. He was hoping for enthusiasm and got it, mostly.

Valgaav, Zelgadiss, and Lina wore wary expressions, but they had been privy to more information than the others. Gourry smiled faintly. "That's awfully nice of you. I expect you're providing transportation, too?"

"Yes, of course."

"Tell 'em everything, but keep your voices down. There's still a couple up front," Valgaav growled. "If this is going to be more than a party, Xel, they need to know the whole story."

"More than a party? Wolfpack Island is a dangerous place to go. What are you leading us into? And no lies!" Filia demanded.

"Okay," Xel sighed and ran a hand through his hair, displacing a few shiny purple strands. It gave him a messy, boyish look that Lina liked. "I guess some of us will be busy exhuming a corpse."

"If you're just trying to disgust me, you've succeeded," Filia snorted.

"He means to discover who my real mother is," Zelgadiss cut in. "He thinks my birth mother was his aunt who's buried on the island. Rezo won't tell me anything, but then he won't listen to anything I have to say either. Rezo's mind is like a steel trap that had been left out in the rain and rusted shut."

Lina covered her face with a hand, smiling at Zelgadiss' unintentional humor, but said nothing. Sylphiel wanted to be supportive and so added, "Rezo is as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something."

Xel was dumbstruck for a moment. _Had she really meant to sound that, er...'lame'?_ He shook his head slightly as he processed the comment. "Well, ah... Rezo's still capable of doing either a great deal of good or an equally great deal of harm."

"So, tell us, Mr. Xelloss," Amelia said in a serious tone of voice. "Tell us everything you know that has something to do with Mr. Zelgadiss. If you want our help, then we need to all know all the particulars."

"Well, I don't think I actually said I wanted all of you to help," Xel began.

"Just get on with it and let them be the judge," Lina snapped. "I wanna get home sometime tonight."

"Very well. Here's what we know to date: Zelgadiss' grandfather, Rezo, used his work at Zanaffar Pharmaceuticals as a cover for or in addition to what he was really doing for my mother, Zelas, in her laboratories on Wolfpack Island. Give me a moment and I'll explain what that is. Okay, so Rezo wanted to put a stop to his own involvement. We know his because we intercepted some proof, which I'll get to in a minute as well. We don't know if Rezo had plans for Zelgadiss when he forced him to work there earlier, but we know that others knew who Zelgadiss was and took advantage of his relationship to Rezo.

"One of those people was Dilgear. Dilgear passed Zelgadiss an envelope to be delivered to Rezo. From personnel records I was able to find out that Dilgear had been working in the accounting department at Zanaffar, and he had reported certain discrepancies in materials ordered, sent out, and possibly other problems. Most of those reports were 'lost' but I found enough evidence in backup e-mail accounts to verify that he did find Rezo out.

"I believe he prepped a letter—well, file—bomb, under orders, to create a modest explosion when Rezo opened it-- as a warning. I had the compound which caused the explosion analyzed, which, by the way, was collected from fragments of the envelope painstakingly accumulated by the police and then mislaid and forgotten. It was of a type used commonly, and nearly exclusively, by the Cepheid organization. It is supposed to burn and create a lot of smoke when exposed to oxygen, but instead it set off the damaging explosion due to the complex chemical vapors of the ongoing experiment in his lab. Rezo was blinded as a result, but Zelgadiss was hurt, too, which I don't think was part of the plan, but I may be mistaken about that part.

"Next, there is more to the Cepheid story. After Zelgadiss recovered, he returned to work with Valgaav and me at the morgue. Shortly thereafter, due to his newly acquired, highly sensitive hearing, we were able to catch Eris red-handed using the Cadaver Keep to store fish she was selling to Cepheid merchants. At the time we discovered the fish I thought it was odd. I noticed one of the frozen fish looked overfilled, so I broke it off from the others, tossed it into the sink to defrost, and put them back into the plastic bag. I know, you didn't see me, but I did. Later, after Eris discovered us in the cadaver keep, gave us her excuses, and left, I removed a bagged note from inside the fish. I wrapped the fish in the garbage and took the note home to read. That's how I found out that Eris was passing secrets via fish back and forth from Rezo to the Cepheid organization, and that he was begging them for help.

"The particular Cepheid clan she was communicating with was one under a man named Milgasia, who my mother has had contact with—not friendly—in the past. I can only imagine that he wanted to stop Zelas' experiments, and still does, I'm sure. That would include anything Rezo would be working on. And since the explosives came from Milgasia's clan, then we can assume that it was he who employed Dilgear to use the explosive to warn Rezo to stop. Using the fish for sending notes was, as I said, after the explosion, so the warning was effective in some way.

"Of course, one attack by the Cepheid clan meant a retaliatory one by Zelas. I can say with certainty that the thug named Joe was sent by Zelas to kill Dilgear for attempting to stop Rezo's experiments. And then just to prove that they were really no better than thugs either, Cepheid's people had Joe killed when he went back to burn evidence.

"So, you ask, what was Zelas doing that had the Cepheid people ready to commit murder to stop? In short, she was using the island's asylum and penal colony for human experiments, experiments to produce what I think is a serum providing eternal life. Or at least youth.

"I believe she was blackmailing Rezo into doing some of the work or providing some of the chemical components. The hard part was figuring out what it was she knew that he didn't want circulated. I think he was afraid that she would reveal Zelgadiss' ancestry to him, although why that is so terrible, I don't know, but I have some ideas, which I'm getting to here.

"While working at the hospital where Zelgadiss was recuperating, Sylphiel discovered an anomaly in the records of Zelgadiss' birth–that he was born in a hospital nowhere near where he was raised brought to question whether or not the mother he'd been living with was actually his birth mother. I sent a DNA sample from Zelgadiss and one from both his 'parents' for analysis."

"They actually did that?" Zelgadiss asked.

"Yeah, the request was cloaked in a request for help for a cure for your skin condition and submitted through the official hospital process. Additionally, I did find the Rezo sample on file at Zanaffar after having some hair samples analyzed. Don't ask me how I got that." He glanced across the table quickly, catching Filia's eye. She seemed happy to just listen and not try to tell the story of their adventure collecting the hair.

"So, what did you find out, Mr. Xelloss?"

"I found out that Zelgadiss has no more in common with his 'mother' than with you, and that he shares more common features with Rezo than with his own father. What we need is a sample for DNA analysis from the body of the woman I believe is his real mother."

"And her grave is on Wolfpack Island?"

"In the family crypt, I believe. I'm still trying to get a layout of the catacombs and access routes."

"And when you get that DNA sample and it confirms she's his mother, then what?

"Well, then we know a secret. With that knowledge, we should be able to discover, or pry the information out of someone, why it is so dark a secret."

Valgaav kept pushing Xel to say more. "You have reason to suspect that there's something important going on with Zelgadiss."

"Ah..." Xel wavered as he considered what to tell them all. What information should he impart to these recent and friends, and, more importantly, what not to divulge.

"Xelloss," Valgaav growled out his cousin's full name. "Your coming to Seyruun had duplicitous overtones, Dad said. We know you had work orders from Zelas. Come clean to everyone, now. The time for secrets is over, if you want any help from our friends."

"Sure," Xel said, biting off the word harshly. "I was getting to that. My working for Gaav was part trade and part investigative. I was sent to locate and bring Zelgadiss to work for my mother. I don't really know why, but from what I've learned about what's going on, I imagine that it wasn't for his mind, but for his DNA. Again, I don't know exactly why yet, but I think it all ties together somehow."

"So we're helping Zelas by allowing you to do what she ordered you?" Filia asked.

All eyes were riveted onto Xel as they all waited for his response. Under a curtain of bangs he looked askance at Lina. What Lina thought was all that mattered to him, and she was munching unconcernedly on a pizza crust. Their eyes met, and Lina set down the food.

"It will only seem that way to her, don't you get it? Zelas thinks he's gonna deliver Zelly into her hands. She even extended the invitation to include all of us, probably to help Xel cover up the real mission here."

"But what will happen to Zelly when we get there? Will she just...take him away?"

"No, Sylphiel, for gods'sakes. Xel will distract her to give us time to dig up the info we need," Lina said.

Xel thanked Lina for her support silently, and was about to add something when Valgaav pushed him for more information. "What about your father? Dad suggested you were working under his orders, too."

Xel chuckled. "Your dad has a very suspicious nature. He's right, of course. Phibrizzo, my father, has been pestering me for information. He, however, just wants to learn the secrets to Gaav's business success and is not part of family longevity scheme."

Valgaav frowned. "That right? So, what have you told him?"

"He had you and me working for him, naturally. Your dad works smart, not hard, something my father could never hope to replicate."

Valgaav smiled, his feelings placated for the time being.

"So, your mom invited us all for a party, but what she really wants is for you to bring Zelly here to dissect him? And she just decided that after losing the tournament game to your team?" Filia asked. "Sounds like she has a trap of her own planned, beyond what she'd do to him."

Xelloss sat back in his chair. "I agree," he said respectfully. "Which is why my plan has to be better. I don't recommend anyone come, actually, but I'll take those that want to." He scanned his friends' faces, starting with Valgaav, Zelgadiss, and Gourry. "We'll need some muscle for the heavy work."

"You'll need firepower," Lina put in.

"My dad's got a gun collection. Who knows how to shoot?" Valgaav looked around.

Zelgadiss nodded. Gourry nodded and said, "I'll bring my own hunting rifle."

"That's fine, but you'll need handguns for close in," Lina pointed out.

"Guns! What are you guys talking about?" Sylphiel cried. "Desecrating a grave is one thing, but now this is getting really scary!"

"You're not thinking about shooting at people, are you?" Amelia asked Valgaav in particular, her outrage apparent in the timber of her voice.

"Last time I heard, the dead don't shoot back," Filia said. "Obviously, Xel's using all of you as fodder for his plan, which is something other than helping out poor Zelly, you can bet."

"I want to help Mr. Zelgadiss, I really do, but I don't know if I can trust Mr. Xelloss. Not only does this sound very dangerous, but unlawful, too." Amelia directed her argument towards Valgaav, hoping he would intercede on her behalf. Valgaav, however, seemed focused on his cousin, letting him handle his own defense.

"If you can't trust me, Filia or Amelia, then by all means stay here. In fact, all you girls should stay, including you, Lina." Xel said in the heat of the moment. It had been a rash statement and well-intended, but Lina took it badly.

"Oh? And miss the action? Oh, no, buster. You can't eliminate us."

Gourry added hastily, "You don't know, but Lina and Amelia were on the girls' target shooting team."

"Damned straight we were! And you definitely need Sylphiel's first-aid help, so don't go demeaning our contribution."

"All right, all right! I'm sorry! You can come along. I was just saying that if you object to the danger, I don't expect you to come, that's all."

"I was objecting to shooting people, Mr. Xelloss. It's not right under any circumstances," Amelia tried again to make her point.

"Fine," Xel sighed. "One group enters the catacombs and another guards our backs and our equipment."

"I'm going in," Zelgadiss said. "I trust no one to do what has to be done. If I have to, I'll do it alone."

"What a martyr," Lina sighed. "Listen up, folks. Zelas will stop at nothing to get what she wants; you witnessed her methods at the tournament and that was nothing compared to what she might do to keep us from our mission. We either live in fear and danger here, waiting for her to abduct Zelly or whatever and then have to go save him..."

"Hey, I can fight back," Zelgadiss started to say in defense of his manhood.

"Yeah, yeah," Lina brushed him aside. "Or we can take the initiative and go there and get what we need to blow her whole operation apart. We'll have the upper hand because we'll be prepared."

"I'm not afraid of dead people. It's the live ones creeping around that worry me," Amelia said looking pointedly at Xel this time.

"I trust Xel," Lina asserted.

"What about you, Valgaav?" Amelia asked.

"He won't lead us into a trap purposely. Ah...we need to discuss all the hazards," he answered evasively. Valgaav watched as the last patrons in the restaurant paid their bill and filed out. "And we got about a half an hour before closing, so you better get started, Xel."

"Okay, there are risks, but we can prepare for them." Xel looked over his notes. "Right, Sylphiel?"

"Risks?" Filia turned to Xel. "Tell us about _all_ the risks."

"Where people might have died of disease, the microbes may still be alive," Sylphiel said.

"Like the plague?" Filia asked.

"Sure, in the older crypts it's possible, but unlikely. Organisms responsible for plague, cholera, typhoid and tuberculosis are unlikely to survive long in a buried cadaver. However, anthrax and smallpox may. Anthrax can form highly resistant spores that can survive in dry, airless conditions and remain viable for at least 80 years," Xel replied.

"But don't worry, Filia," Sylphiel added. "Humans are pretty resistant to anthrax and can be cured with the use of penicillin."

"Should we get shots? You're a doctor, Xel," Lina reminded him with a nudge, "can you give us shots to protect us?"

"Vaccination against anthrax is possible, although the side effects are unpleasant. We'd really have to suspect that we'd be running into bodies with that, and I don't think that's going to be the case."

"Is there some test you can do on the bodies to know before we all get exposed?" Amelia asked this time.

"It is generally not possible to know if any of those interred within a crypt was an anthrax victim, but the possibility remains that some might have been. More importantly, coffin padding might include contaminated animal by-products, like horse hair, which all present a possible risk. For this reason, I recommend that only those who are tolerant of penicillin, or its alternatives, should come."

"What about the plague and whatever else might have killed those people?" Filia asked. "That is, _disease_-related killers, not your kin."

Xel and Filia exchanged smirks before he answered. "Smallpox is considered to be eradicated worldwide thanks to compulsory vaccination, but some of those interred within a post-medieval crypt may have died from smallpox. The risk to health exists where previously infected inhumations within a crypt will have surviving skin with scabs, which would be the only site where the virus might survive. Although the chance of this occurring is minimal, the potential risk is so great that we must take precautions. So far, I have been and still am currently searching death certificates and all other relevant records to filter out the possibilities and minimize our contact with disease deaths. I had a vaccination against smallpox in childhood, verified by a scar, so if in doubt, I handle moving any of those bodies, should the need arise. In any case, we must all be double-gloved when opening coffins, but if any skin survives, I'll inspect the remains first."

"Oh, I nearly forgot to add that because pregnant women have reduced immunity, should you be pregnant then, you should tell me. Those who are HIV positive would also be at increased risk, so same goes for you." Xel glanced around quickly, and was surprised at Sylphiel's frightened look. "Ah, don't worry. I'll talk to each of you privately in the next few days. The exhumation work isn't for everyone. Filia, even if I trusted you at my back, I know Cepheid Believers may not be allowed to handle the dead, so you wouldn't be expected to be involved in the exhumation. As I said before, I'll find some other job for you."

"Yeah, you need some folks to man the base station with our belongings and communication equipment– I get it."

"So, what other dangers are we likely to run into when digging up old cemeteries, Mr. Xelloss?"

"I am glad you asked, Miss Amelia. On Wolfpack Island, arsenic was the main ingredient in the embalming fluids, until recently, of course. In fact, it was used widely throughout the country, until Gaav's father led the movement to upgrade to the safer chemicals we use today. Although effective, arsenic is toxic and persistent, and elemental arsenic will never degrade into harmless by-products. This means that the embalming practices during the last 100 years or so have left a legacy that can potentially impact the environment and harm the health of cemetery workers– including those planning to exhume a body located in one of these old burial grounds.

"Arsenic embalming began as a sanitary practice and a practical means to preserve the body until burial or for transport. Although fluid composition was often a trade secret, arsenic was the primary embalming agent because it effectively killed or halted the microorganisms responsible for decomposition."

"How much?" Sylphiel asked, quietly. She was the only one present, besides Xelloss, who knew exactly how much arsenic it took to kill a human being.

"Well, from as little as four ounces to as much as 12 poundsof arsenic per body. Other embalming compositions were used less frequently and contained similar toxic materials such as mercury or creosote. Considering that the alternative was ice, arsenic embalming seemed like a significant improvement. What the undertakers did not consider were the long-term effects of placing significant amounts of arsenic in concentrated burial areas—cemeteries.

"The arsenic that endures today can pose significant danger to forensic archeologists, cemetery workers, or individuals that may be utilizing potentially contaminated groundwater supplies."

"I think they figured this out as more and more folks mysteriously died of arsenic poisoning," Sylphiel remembered, "and later when the chronic effects showed up, including lung cancer due to exposure to arsenic dust."

"That's right, Sylphiel," Xelloss was a little surprised and definitely pleased at her contributions. Perhaps she wasn't that bad a match for Zelgadiss, after all. "Initially, burials were primarily in wood coffins that were placed directly in the ground. Such a method was cheap and sufficient for prisoners. Both wooden and metal caskets eventually degrade and begin to allow contact of the embalmed remains with the environment. Arsenic, a basic element, will not change or degrade, but must either stay with the remains or move into the environment. As the containers corrode, water moving downward through the soils of cemeteries can dissolve arsenic from the burials and move arsenic into the soil or groundwater. This slow spread of arsenic from numerous sources in an old cemetery can lead to serious environmental and health problems."

"Such as...?" Filia urged him on. The Cepheid Clan had special burial practices to avoid just this, and she'd never really known why until now. It wasn't a question that came up frequently in normal people's conversations, after all.

"To understand the potential impact, assume a hypothetical cemetery in a modest-sized town. It is reasonable to assume that 2,000 people die during a period of 30 years. If half of those people were embalmed with arsenic, using six ounces of fluid per person, the cemetery contains 380 pounds of arsenic. If the embalmers in the area used more arsenic, such as three pounds per person, then the cemetery would contain over one ton of arsenic. In either case, this is a significant amount of a potent, toxic material to find in the ground at one location."

"Like a nuclear waste site," Lina snorted.

"Not quite," Xelloss smiled. "But bad enough. Arsenic was banned from usage as an embalming agent by the all the regional governments years ago because of the large number of deaths in embalmers due to their overexposure to the chemical. Because the main routes of exposure are ingestion, inhalation, and skin contact, there can be important health and safety implications for personnel working at sites where arsenic is present in sufficient concentrations. Acute arsenic poisoning by ingestion can occur as the result of hand contact with dusts or objects containing arsenic compounds, and subsequent hand-to-mouth contact. Another common mechanism includes the dust settling on objects which later have contact with the mouth, including the tops of soda cans, cigarettes in a shirt pocket, or eating utensils. Most ingested arsenic is quickly absorbed through the stomach and intestines and enters the blood stream."

"So never trust a vending machine in an old funeral home," Gourry nodded.

"That's why they don't sell food at cemeteries," Lina added. They smiled wanly at each other's stupid but necessary jokes.

Sylphiel brightened at the mood. "When you asked me to gather all the information I could on arsenic poisoning, I wondered who your enemy was." Everyone chuckled when she said this. "So here's what I learned. First, if arsenic is eaten it irritates the digestive tract, so it hurts. You can feel nausea, which leads to vomiting and diarrhea. After those immediate reactions, a patient can have abnormal heart function and impaired nerve function, causing a 'pins and needles' sensation in the feet and hands.

"That's just if you get it in your mouth. If the site is dry, dusty, or if you handle things coated with dust, your throat and lungs can be exposed. The symptoms and effects are the same, but usually milder. And you definitely don't want to touch the stuff either. It can irritate the skin or eyes or nose or throat, which is really nasty with redness, swelling, and pain."

"How do we know if there's arsenic around a grave?" Zelgadiss asked.

Valgaav cleared his throat. "Crystals and garlic."

They gave Valgaav an incredulous look so he gave them a quick wolfish smile and went on more seriously. "I checked with a forensic archaeologist professor I know to be sure. He told me that arsenic in a grave is indicated by the presence of vivid blue or blue-green copper oxide-like crystal formations on bones. Such formations and staining are evidently more extensive than stains that may be left on bones by copper artifacts near the skeleton. Not that we're likely to find many of those anyway. Okay, then according to rock and mineral field guides, arsenic minerals have a noticeable garlic-like odor when broken. Obviously, if there are any tissue remains in a really old grave, then something preserved it, and that something, as Xel pointed out, will most likely be arsenic. The professor urged me to use extreme caution around graves if I encountered unusual odors, soil colors, or staining, particularly in finely divided or crystalline form."

"So we have to watch out for diseases and avoid contact with arsenic, and Zelas. What else?" Lina asked, checking her watch.

"Well, there is the possibility that we might encounter other chemical hazards like mercury or formaldehyde. All-in-all, we must avoid excessive contact with soil. So, I've made up a list of things we'll need for the exhumation work. We have a few days to buy and box everything up, but here goes: latex gloves under leather ones; face masks with air filtration to PP3 standard; disposable over-suits; washable shoes or boots; hard hats and safety glasses; shovels, rope, pick-axe, hatchet, hammer, and whatever else you can think of; and bring a collection kit for bones and tissue."

"We need to get going on that right away. So, who's in?" Lina demanded. She scanned everyone insisting that they make their decision at that moment. "Besides Xel and Zelgadiss and me and naturally Gourry."

Gourry nodded, "Yep."

"Good. We'll be the ones going inside the tombs, then." Xel turned toward Valgaav. "I'd like you to be at the entrance, outside to warn us about unwelcome company, and Amelia, if you are adept at shooting, then protecting Sylphiel and our belongings and preparing for evacuation would be in your hands. Would you be okay with that?"

"Yes, I'll trust Lina and Valgaav to make sure we stay law-abiding citizens." She said that, but she meant that they would keep an eye on Xel.

"She'll have me there, too," Filia spoke up. "I've done my share of hunting and can handle a rifle."

Xel looked at Valgaav for confirmation. "I'll leave you in charge of them, so it's up to you to decide who you trust to do what."

Valgaav knew he meant that allowing Filia to be a part of the team was his call. "Okay, Filia, I know the Cepheid people have some interest in closing down Zelas' activities. I know you are a Cepheid clans member– shit, so am I, by birth anyway– so I'll bet you got your own agenda going on here, too. I'd like you to come clean about that first. Then you gotta agree to do what I say, or don't come."

"Miss Filia, you want to help Zelgadiss, don't you? You wouldn't do something to jeopardize his righteous goal to uncover his ancestor and determine his true identity?"

Filia looked down and away, before meeting Amelia's eyes. "I want to help, but I have to say that I will do everything in my power to keep him out of the hands of that evil woman."

"Sounds good to me." Xel smiled slightly.

"We will form an alliance of just and righteousness and shall overcome the powers of evil!" Amelia cried out, while hopping up onto her chair, her tiny fist uplifted in a moment of fervor.

"Ah, yes..." Xel looked uncomfortable. "Lina can't you do something about her?" he whispered.

"Amelia, sit down." Lina yanked on her friend's pants, forcing her back into her own seat.

"So, getting down to basics," Xel said as he ran his finger down a paper, pressing out the creases. "Here is a short list of what everyone should bring. You know, like a sleeping bag. Two of you should be in charge of food and water for three meals. Dinner will be up at the castle, but I wouldn't count on anything more than that."

"We're not staying at the castle?" Lina asked.

"We are, the first night, but in the morning we move out, and when I say morning I mean before we go to sleep, so in a sense, we aren't really staying at the..."

"Where are we staying, Xel?"

"Well, I asked Sherra, my cousin, to check out a few cottages and outbuildings in the vicinity of the catacombs. She alerted me this morning that she had been successful and is currently moving in a few cots and lanterns. It will be rustic but dry."

For the next hour the group huddled over their lists, making changes as new ideas came to mind. Zelas, and to some extent Gaav, as it turned out, would be the only parent knowing where the kids would be after the play. Zelgadiss would, of course, keep his whereabouts secret from Rezo, and would rely on Valgaav to tell Gaav whatever he felt was necessary. Sylphiel was already pretty independent, but agreed that even she would say she was staying over at Lina's. Filia claimed Amelia and Amelia told her father she and Lina would be at Sylphiel's home. Amelia felt terribly guilty already, and she hadn't even told her father the lie yet. Gourry had his own apartment, but he'd tell his folks that he'd be out with friends. The arrangements weren't tidy, but they were made at last. The most detailed list of equipment needs for the exhumation needed the most explanation.

"Zelgadiss and I will take care of this stuff. I'll leave Valgaav and Gourry to be in charge of the weaponry, Sylphiel to put together a medical kit, and..."

"Amelia and I will handle the food, oh, and Filia, you can help us, too. Well, that's enough for tonight. I gotta rest and think about this stuff now." Lina stood up. "Besides, we got your play to look forward to tomorrow."

Her movement was a signal for the others to say their farewells and leave. Xel tapped her on the shoulder and whispered in her ear, "Would you like to join me tonight?"

"Someplace special?"

"Yes."

"Sure, but I want to stop at my place first."

"Certainly. Ah, here're the keys to the car. I'll meet you there in just a moment. I need a word with someone."

"Yeah, sure."

Xelloss moved to Sylphiel's side, blocking Zelgadiss. "Hey, I need to ask your girl a question. Just be a moment, 'kay?"

"Ask away."

"In private, please. Only a moment..." Xel smiled and pointed Zelgadiss toward the door.

Xel pulled Sylphiel to the side. "I, ah, may be off base here, but I had the feeling you had something on your mind."

Sylphiel looked uncomfortable, but once everyone else was out of earshot, she said, "I need to be careful around the dust and stuff." Xelloss waited for her to explain, although he suspected he knew what she was about the tell him. "I-I think, well... I may be pregnant. It's very early, and I know that false ones show up a lot in the first few months so it might not be."

Xel held up one hand. "Please tell me it's Zelgadiss' and not some other guy's."

"It is, yes."

"And you haven't told him, I take it."

"No, not yet. It's too soon. I don't want to get him all, well, excited and worried over nothing. And I most certainly don't want him to feel he can't go to college. You won't tell, will you?"

"No, as long as you promise to tell him after next weekend. Until then, my lips are sealed. Don't look at me that way. He needs to know so he can decide what to do, too, and believe me, the more time he's got, the better. Shit, don't kids know how to use contraceptives anymore?" He shook his head and stalked out the door. His funk passed quickly when he saw Lina's hair inside his car. Lina, his Lina. He rapped on her window, "Hey, beautiful. Wanna go for a drive?"

She rolled down the window. "Ooh, I love a smooth-talking guy with bowling moves. Well, more so than a smooth-talking guy with moving bowels. Sorry. Yeah, sure, get in."

"Thanks." He slipped into the driver's seat and leaned over, kissing her experimentally. She would either be receptive or not. She didn't recoil in disgust, so he suggested, "So, I figure that we'll stop by your place, where you can shower and pack up a change of clothes."

"Okay. How about you?"

"I packed a bag, just in case."

"And your shower?"

"After you, if that's okay." He didn't dare look at her and jinx the moment. He kept his eyes straight ahead.

"At my place."

"Yes."

"Then we go-- you driving us away someplace for the night?"

"The night and the next day until I have to show up at the playhouse. Sound okay to you?"

"Yeah. Let's go."

* * *

"Wait here ten minutes, then come in," Lina told Xel as he parked his car near the entrance to her house. With a peck on his cheek she reached into the back seat, grabbed her bowling gear, and ran off.

"Okay," he said to her retreating figure. Now wasn't the time to press her for intimacy, he decided. He checked his watch three times, then got out and removed his bag from the small trunk. He let himself into her room just as she was shutting off the shower water. "Hello," he called out.

"I'll be out in a sec, then you can take a turn," she shouted from behind the bathroom door.

"Okay." He had decided to let her have her way-- for now. He wouldn't let her get away this time.

"Whew! That's better," she laughed on her way out into the room. She felt his eyes on her towel, which she held tightly with one hand. "Go on...clean up so we can get going."

"Yes, dear," he chuckled. "I assume there's a dry towel for me to use?"

"Ah...check the drawer."

He found one, and then closed the bathroom door. While he showered, she dressed, whistling. She was in good spirits and wondered what kind of surprises her new boyfriend had in store for her this time.

Boyfriend. That sounded odd, but nice. Quirky guy. A doctor, no...a pathologist doctor who liked to do fun and dangerous things. He also liked to take her to fine places, so she packed her nice dress anyway, just in case, along with some casual things and her toothbrush. He wasn't likely to be put off from intimate contact any longer. They had slept together platonically several times, and it had been exciting and fun watching him reign in his desires in order to please her. She wondered if she could make him wait again as she sat on her bed combing out her tangled mop of red curls. No, she decided, she wanted him. She wanted that intimacy with him that they had been skirting around. He just oozed sexuality tonight, but she was nervous and insecure. Her usual self-confidence was faltering. What was he expecting from her? She spun around at the sound of a door opening.

"All packed?" Xel asked as he exited the bathroom. He was sporting a fresh change of clothes and damp hair.

"Y-yep, as instructed."

"This way then," he smiled faintly and led the way back out to his car, carrying both bags. If he was reading her correctly, and he believed he was, then he would have to help her overcome some anxieties. He hoped the drive would help.

Shortly after, they were rolling out onto the highway. He opened the sunroof for a breeze, but this night it was markedly cooler. The air was dry and the stars visible and bright as dusk deepened into night.

Lina took a deep breath. "Fall. It smells like fall and it's dark already."

"That's right. It's only a week or two away. Classes are about to start."

"Don't remind me," Lina said, groaning. "I'm not in the mood for sitting in classrooms."

"No? I thought you were looking forward to starting college."

"I thought I was. I think I was happier to be out of high school. Right now, though, I feel like doing things, goings places..."

"Seeing the world?" Xel added on.

"Yeah...yeah, that would be perfect. I'd like to travel first. Eh, too bad I haven't the funds. Maybe I should keep the job and save up for next year."

"Or...maybe we could travel together."

"Together?"

"Maybe we should see how this little party on Wolfpack Island pans out first, but if all goes well, I may be at loose ends and without employment myself."

"Plus you have some money saved up?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes."

Lina thought about that and rode in silence for a long while. They were on a coast road, ocean to the right, forested mountains to the left. She recognized where they were; she had come here with Gourry to row on the lake. A sudden pang of guilt struck at her heart. "We're staying on the lake?"

"Not exactly. There are cottages above it that overlook the lake and one in particular should have a very nice view of the moon rising over it tonight."

Lina liked the sound of that. She glanced over to see Xel's profile. His hair rippled slightly in the wind. His fair skin shone pale in the dim light from the dashboard, while his shoulders and chest were cast in purpling shadows. His was a beauty rare in men, delicate features but not soft; masculine but not beefy. If Gourry had been her summer sun, glowing with health and vigor, then Xel was now her winter moon, partially masked in mists and mystery, bloodless and deadly. The image shook her with its intensity, but she found that the comparison suited him and, on further rumination, didn't disturb her deeply.

Xel stopped at the office to check in and gather the keys before parking at one of the private log cabins. Inside the cabin, Lina was excited to find a small kitchenette, already stocked with a few items. When she drew the curtains covering the expansive picture window, a most beautiful vista opened to her view. "Oh, Xel, this is just like you said. I see the moon rising through the trees."

He flopped onto the bed, legs dangling over the end, arms wide, beckoning her to join him. "You can see it from here." She turned and looked him over, but didn't budge. He tried again. "Come here, Lina."

This time she moved to between his bent legs and looked down her nose at his smiling face. "I'm here."

He reached up, smoothing her arms with his hands a few times before pulling her down on top on him for a meaningful kiss. After a delicious interlude, Lina broke away to breathe.

He used the opening to order her to "Undress me" in a voice husky with pent up excitement.

Her eyes shot up to meet his as she inhaled sharply with an "Eep!"

"Starting with my shirt..." he continued patiently, leading her hands to the top button, but moving no further.

Step-by-step he guided her through the art of love making, letting her explore him first before launching his move on her. They paused often to appreciate the full moon rising over the lake, and bask in moonbeams shining through the window. He was so artful that Lina never fully realized that it wasn't she who was directing the action. He made it seem as if she were the principle choosing positions or actions, urging her surreptitiously, yet never backing down or taking no for an answer. He was a very clever, but caring man. He treasured every moment and discovered that he was deeply in love with this young woman.

Lina was so caught up in the new feelings that she forgot how much she hated to be touched. She delighted in his reactions; his absolute enjoyment of her every caress encouraged her to try more. She felt that this love making was something she was pretty good at, and could enjoy on a frequent basis. She found Xel to be very appealing with his lithe, lean body and smooth muscles, which rippled as she ran her hand over his chest or along his thigh. A night and a morning seemed a short time to lie with him. Parting so he could participate in the play the next day would be a challenge. Parting to go home alone would be harder still. Lina didn't know exactly when, but sometime that night she concluded that Xel had become a terribly important part of her life.

Possibly it was when she was lying awake sometime in the wee hours watching Xel breathe. The last of the moonlight painted his resting form in still life. Was it possible that he loved her? That he could? Whatever was she going to do with him if he did? What if he didn't? The last thought gave her pause, but only briefly. He had to. He had tried too hard, waited too long to slight her now. And there were those travel plans to consider. That pleasant thought eased her mind as she passed back into dreamland.

The return to reality was slow in coming. The next day, both Lina and Xel were floating on a cloud of euphoria. Although neither told the other how significant they had become overnight, Xel was certain of Lina's affections and Lina was sure Xel adored her, which was all that mattered at the moment. There would be time later for the telling of future hopes, dreams, and commitments, if they were meant for each other. They had slept in late, missed breakfast, and now were weighing the importance of eating over lazing about. Eating required getting up, dressing, and driving for lunch, while lazing required doing practically nothing. Lina chose lazing, which was an indicator of how infatuated she had become.

By one in the afternoon, however, Xel declared the 'date' over and recommended that they shower, change, and pack up to leave. "We'll drive a little and stop for an early dinner. That sound okay to you?"

"Yeah," Lina sighed.

"Hey, don't look so glum. I need you to be our supportive audience tonight, and it's a short work week, remember? Gaav's letting us off early to prepare for our excursion on the Isle of Evil."

"Cool. Okay, I'm packed, but definitely not ready to go. This...has been a lotta fun, Xel."

"I would like to do it again, soon." His suggestive attitude left no doubts as to what he meant, but he added just in case, "Making love to you by the moonlight is second to none."

"Yeah, I make a place pretty special, don't I?" she laughed on her way out the door.

"You have no idea," Xel whispered as he followed at her heels.

End Graveyard Shift, Chapter 22


	23. Reign of Zombies

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 23 -**Reign of Zombies-

"_Now_ we're getting someplace."

* * *

Lina began to wonder if she hadn't come to the wrong play after all. It was only five minutes into the first act and she couldn't imagine Xel demeaning himself to participate in such a debacle. Gourry sat to her right, Amelia to her left, with Filia and Sylphiel in the outer seats on either side. From the confused expressions they wore, it was clear to her that her friends all felt similarly.

"So what's wrong with that guy?" Gourry asked in a low voice while gesturing toward the stage.

"Nothing. He's fine. Just another romance-novel love-interest for the idiot heroine to spurn for no apparent reason. Just wait, some dark and evil guy will show up for her to fall for."

"Okay." Gourry patiently listened to the poor girl's sad tale of unmatched passion a moment longer. "Ah, Lina?"

"What?" Lina wasn't angry at him for his repeated interruptions; in fact, she was happy for the distraction it gave her.

"Aren't our friends supposed to be in this? They weren't any of those losers, were they?"

"No, you haven't missed them. They're zombies, wherever _they_ fit into this stupid play."

Amelia giggled. "Oh Lina, here comes Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsomely Mysterious. How long do you suppose we have to wait until we see the lady swoon at his feet?"

"About five min-eh...nope; there she goes!" Lina shouted. The people seated around Lina didn't even bother telling her to be quiet. Her conversation was far more compelling than the dialogue on stage.

"_Oh, Blaise, what a breath of fresh air you are to this town!"_

"_Why, Charlotte, how kind of you to say, and you hardly know me."_

"_I feel like I've known you all my life."_

"_You are as intelligent as you are beautiful."_

"What a load of crap," Lina grimaced. "Ewww, how can she stand looking up at that moustache?"

"What makes you think the guy's evil?" Gourry asked.

"The bad guys always have moustaches," Lina said.

"That's not true! My daddy has one and so does Miss Sylphiel's dad, and you know that Miss Lina! Oh, you were just kidding me, weren't you?"

"Yeah, I was, Amelia. Oh, don't look now, but Mr. Tall and Dark is showing us his evil side. See? Just like I said."

"You sure you never read the book?" Sylphiel whispered.

"Book? This trash isn't based on any written matter or it would have been burned first. It's all the dreary outcome of a mind tortured by watching endless soap operas. Now what's going on?"

"The spurned gentlemen are trying to reason with her and warn her about Mr. Tall and Dark," Amelia answered.

"Ha! Like she'll believe them! She'll think they're just jealous. Man, if they're smart they'll figure out just how lucky they are to have escaped her crazy clutches. Ah, well. Now ol' Miss Charlotte will try to get the bad guy to fall for her, you can bet."

"He doesn't seem too interested," Gourry noted.

"Not yet. She'll have to really knock herself out to get his attention. Look... Oh, cripes. There she goes with the absurd devotion act. What a simpering fool!"

"Well, at least those other nice men are free to find... OH!"

"Heh, heh. Yeah, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Evil is killing them off one by one. That's why they're disappearing."

"There's where our zombies are going to come from," Filia put in from the far side of Gourry.

"Betcher right," Lina agreed. "Gods, listen to that guy bellow. Yeah, yeah, you're evil and you're proud, we got that. Oh, now he's going to revel in his biliousness."

"_And now..._

_My greatest moment wherein I shall summon the_

_LORD OF THE DEAD_

_from the bowels of the earth._

_Hear me, hear my call! Rise up!"_

"**That**'s his incantation? I could have come up with five better ones with my tongue tied behind my...well, with no problem at all, anyway."

"_Together we shall begin the Reign of the Zombies! _

_Rise, heed my call and appear, _

_Oh Lord ZOALMELGUSTAR! _

_Rise!"_

"Zol-ma-gu-what? What kind of a name for a demon god is that?" Gourry asked.

"Strangely familiar, oddly enough," Lina grumbled. She was fighting through the cluttered storage lockers in her mind, searching for a file, the one where that name, Zoalmelgustar, was associated with its nutcase of a creator.

"_No, no! Blaise darling! You've been misguided. _

_This isn't the way to salvation, dear. _

_Let me help you! Let me guide you back on the path of the good and right. _

_I...I... yes, I vow with all my heart to change you. _

_To rid you off all evil and turn you to the light..."_

"Hey, dearie, open your eyes!" Lina shouted again. "Quit railing away. Blaise dearest is murdering everyone in the play. He is not listening, baby."

"_It was all the fault of that nasty little redheaded temptress, I know. _

_It's not your fault at all!"_

"Little redhead... Say what?" Lina gasped. Instantly her mind located the missing information, mistakenly filed under 'Insane complexes'. Zoalmelgustar hated her, Martina– bingo! But how had Martina's insane ravings, her 'screen play,' make it into this play, and why?

"I don't think he's changing his mind about raising the dead."

"You are right, Mr. Gourry. That Miss Charlotte is going about this all wrong. She's doing it for the wrong reasons. If she had justice in her heart and was truly righteous and of pure intentions, then, _and only then_, might she have the strength to overcome his evil!"

"Ah, Amelia? Please sit down, the folks behind you can't see," Sylphiel urged her.

"That's okay, honey. You're prettier than anything on that stage," intoned the voice of a young man from the seats behind them.

"Oh!" Amelia gasped, and fell back into her seat, a blush of embarrassment spreading over her cheeks.

"_I see I have no choice left. I- I must be the final sacrifice! _

_You are far greater a man than a delicate, _

_chaste maiden such as I could have imagined. _

_I would have given you everything!"_

"That's bullshit! You would have slept with the creep if he'd given you a second glance, that's all you mean," Lina grumbled.

"_Your path of glory to your gods offers me no attractions. _

_Only by the dark light of Zoalmelgustar is there a place for me to rule the dead!" _

"Dark light? How is that a meaningful phrase? Who wrote this drivel?" Filia asked Gourry.

Gourry opened his dog-eared play list. "Says here Marty Nav-rat-love, or something."

"Never heard of him," Filia clipped off. "When's this over?"

"Pretty soon, there aren't any people alive anymore, 'cept those two."

"And I think that's about to change," Lina pitched in. "Looks likes our poor heroine is about to throw herself overboard for the cause."

"_Then to prove my love for you is greater than all else, take me! _

_Sacrifice me to your demon lord. _

_I shall die devoted to you and for that you shall turn from evil and love me forever bound in my blood!"_

"He's actually killing her after that sweet speech! He is awful. What's the purpose in that?" Amelia cried out.

"There is none. This whole play is pointless. He kills her in blood-lust-rage thing, his demon lord possesses him..."

"Is that what he's doing? Oh, I get it now," Gourry shook his head. "I thought he was funnier than before."

"_I am the demon lord ZOAMELGUSTAR! _

_Let the reign of zombies begin! _

_Oh no, Nooooo! _

_The vessel I have chosen for my return is too weak with regret..._

_and now I, too, die..."_

"Yeah, and now look, he dies too. With anemic little 'poofs' of fire and brimstone, how lame. What a display of pyrotechnics. Great, marvelous! Everyone dies in the end. What a load of crap! What's the purpose? Good, bad, or indifferent, everyone dies in the end? What a senseless, inane, worthless plot!" Lina yelled at the top of her lungs. "Bring on the zombies or I'm demanding my money back!"

A large contingent of agitators seated around the Lina crowd, joined in, "Zombies, zombies!" not knowing if there were any or not. Magically, the lights dimmed and the spots adjusted to the color 'eerie.' Fog machines in the aisles and offstage gassed out clouds of mist, further contributing to the moody atmosphere. And if that wasn't enough, creepy music rose out of nowhere, and this was particularly odd because at no other time in the play was there music or singing involved.

Lina sat forward with a grin. "Now we're getting someplace."

Shadowy, pale-faced apparitions appeared to rise from the floors, in the aisles, on the stage. Lina picked out Zelgadiss from the other raggedly dressed figures from his distinctive hair. Xel was a little harder, but she found him.

"There's Val!" Amelia cried gleefully and pointing to the far side of the room. "He sees me!"

For the first time all evening, the hall came alive, although the intention was more likely to have been to suggest the opposite.

The big production number began with all the zombies leaping vigorously about and singing the catchy opening song. Then Xel and Zelgadiss peeled off from the lineup for their portrayals of the spurned suitors. Xel sidled up to the zombie version of the Charlotte character and began to sing. His youthful voice rang sweet and clear as he attempted to sing his way into her heart.

"_Please be my lady. _

_I know I can make you happy, _

_If you will let me, _

_I promise to make you happy_

_--maybe, maybe."_

"He has a nice voice," Amelia said giggling.

The zombie girl resisted Xel's temptations and charming smile with a firm shake of her head, and turned away. He heaved a dramatic sigh, and then tap-danced off stage, only to return moments later to form a part of the chorus.

"I didn't know he could sing. He dances, too? Wow!"

"He's just Mr. Entertainment, isn't he?" Filia said sarcastically.

Lina couldn't believe her eyes or ears. Was that her Xel up there on the stage? She knew he could deliver lines from seeing his Atlas city act, but he could sing and dance like a pro, too. She was impressed. She imagined him singing softly, arms around her, lying together, under the sheets. Desire filled her mind; she wanted to have him all to herself. It took the voices of the zombie chorus shook her out of her dream world.

"_We're the undead, 'nuff said._

_We're zombies, gotta get that through yer head._

_Don't come around unless you've come from underground...!"_

Then it was Zelgadiss' turn to warble his case. His soft, low voice and sensitive manner melted the hearts of many of the girls listening, but he was turned away by the Charlotte poser just the same. He moon-walked over to join the background singers.

"He's pretty good, isn't he?" Lina called over to Sylphiel, who was looking starry-eyed up at her boyfriend.

"He sings...and those moves..." The rest of what Sylphiel wanted to say was lost as the music swelled.

Amelia gasped. "Oh, look! Valgaav, he's the bad guy!"

Valgaav lurched stage center, clasped the zombie girl at the elbow, and bellowed in a rocker scream:

"_I got no use for your platitudes._

_I have my own agenda._

_I got no use for your attitude,_

_Don't start something you can't finish_

_I'm something bigger than all the rest._

_I'm the general to rule the world_

_So don't put me to some test,_

_Don't start something you can't finish!"_

"Gods, will you listen to that, Amelia!" Lina poked her friend in the side to get her attention. "He really could be a rock star, dontcha think?"

"Uh, huh," she nodded, unable to tear her eyes off her very sexy-looking boyfriend.

Immediately after Valgaav ended his solo, the Charlotte zombie girl locked him in a tight embrace. Her shrill voice whined,

"_Oh, no! Please let me show you how love can free your heart!" _

Backing her was the chorus of zombies singing,

"_Free your heart, free your heart!"_

At last, Valgaav loosened her grip, and let loose with a heart-rending scream:

"_Begone!" _

He hit his final note then with an elegant twist of his wrist flung the girl off him and sent her spinning into the wings.

Lucky for everyone, the boys' personalities transcended the material and brought the house to its feet. The play ended with a tacky climatic light show with colored lenses and strobes. The standout performances of Valgaav, Zelgadiss, and Xel added a humorous edge to what had intended to be a seriously, frightening, dismal, and depressing conclusion. No amount of makeup could disguise how good-looking, or unseasoned, they were. They stole the show, such as it was.

"Zom-bies! Zom-bies! Zom-bies!" chanted the audience.

The director didn't know what to do. The show was over. All the actors had returned to the stage and were taking their bows. How could he satisfy their need for more zombies? The director was completely unprepared, and the producer seemed baffled as well. As the curtains rose and the actors took their final bows, the din became overwhelming. "Zom-bies! Zom-bies! Zom-bies!"

"Would you like us to carry the encore?" Xel asked the obviously frazzled director.

"Could you? Yes, yes, anything!"

"We have a little skit," Xel said with a wink. Indeed, he and Valgaav had pressed Zelgadiss into their 'act' for 'fun' and 'just in case.' "Okay, guys. We're good to go. This is our chance for the big time. Broadway next, then our world tour."

Zelgadiss' eyes grew wide and wild-like, fear prickling his skin. "Skit? Now? Out there?"

Valgaav chuckled, and gave his friend a little push. "Let's just get past tonight. Come on, Zelgadiss. You're the nurse."

The three young men ducked in front of the falling curtain, while the applause rose to an awful din. Xelloss smiled and waved as he approached a microphone. As he started to speak, the room grew quieter.

"Thanks everyone. You've been a super audience, and I'm used to audiences, actually. As a doctor, most of my audiences are patients, and as a forensic pathologist, most of my patients are dead. But for a few minutes here, let's say I'm your friendly family psychiatrist. You know, the Mind-sweeper, the doctor who asks a lot of expensive questions your wife asks for nothing."

Lina laughed loudly. She thought he'd make a terrible psychiatrist, and the suggestion struck her funny bone. Her outburst stimulated others to laugh as well, until the whole crowd was responding to the jokes with gusto.

"In your case it's more of a case of the care of the id, by the odd," Zelgadiss said.

"Thank you _Nurse Zelda_. You know, when I was just starting out, I had to advertise to get patients."

Zelgadiss could see his friends in the audience. Sylphiel blew him a kiss, Amelia was clapping madly, Filia smiling and waved. With their support, he relaxed more. "Oh, I remember: 'Satisfaction guaranteed or your mania back.'"

"Ah, yes...something like that. It worked. Before long I was swamped with business."

Zelgadiss sighed as if he had to endure an idiot for a boss every day. "Oh, yeah. Be a better psychiatrist and the world will beat a psychopath to your door.

Xel frowned in jest. "That will be enough for now, unless I have a patient waiting?"

"Well, in fact you do." Zelgadiss stepped aside for Valgaav to take center stage.

"Doctor," Valgaav said in a harried tone of voice. His body language screamed 'frantic', and the crowd roared as he continued. "I'm manic-depressive, and I need help."

"I see, well... Calm down. Cheer up. Calm down. Cheer up. Calm..." His voice faded into the applause. Xel then turned to Zelgadiss and asked, "Who's next?"

"A very difficult case, doctor." Zelgadiss motioned to Valgaav, who had been flattening his hair into a central part to appear as a new patient.

Valgaav announced, "Doctor, I have a split personality. What can you do for me?"

Xel gestured to Zelgadiss again. "Nurse, bring in another chair."

"You'll need more than that," Valgaav said. "I got lots of personalities."

"You mean you have a lot of personality, don't you?"

"No, I have an identity problem... So do I," he added in an entirely different voice to sound like a different person. While the audience laughed and giggled, Valgaav messed with his hair. He would either change his hair or adorn his head with a hat between each new character. In this case it was pushed completely out of his face. "Doctor, I keep thinking that I'm a deck of cards!"

"Sit over there and I'll deal with you later." Xel smiled as the crowd responded in laughter. "Next?"

Valgaav parted his green mop to one side. "Doctor, I keep thinking I'm a dustbin."

"Don't talk such rubbish."

Valgaav spiked his hair up and out in a wild fashion. "Doctor, people tell me I'm a wheelbarrow."

"My only advice for you is: Don't let people push you around."

"Doctor, I can't stop stealing things," Valgaav whined with a baseball hat mashing his hair down.

"Nurse, hand me those pills." Xel took an imaginary vial from Zelgadiss, and held it out to Valgaav. "Here, take these pills. They should help you."

"But what if they don't?"

"Pick up a Rolls for me, silver, wood burl interior, please."

Valgaav tossed the hat into the crowd, causing a little uproar, then used his fingers to comb his hair over his eyes. "Doctor, I keep thinking I'm a curtain."

"Pull yourself together!" Xel snapped.

With a beanie cap in place, Valgaav said, "Doctor, I keep thinking I'm a billiard ball."

"Get to the end of the _queue_," Xel replied wearily. "Aren't we about out of personalities yet?"

"There's me, everyone forgets about me. No one notices me. Doctor, I keep thinking I must be invisible."

"Who said that?" Xel asked, looking past Valgaav. He grins and turns back to his nurse. "Actually, I like treating a patient with a split personality."

"Is that because schizophrenics pay double?" Zelgadiss asked.

"Because Medicare pays for all of them!" Xel laughed at his own joke.

"There's another patient to see you," Nurse Zelgadiss said. "My brother. I hope you can help him."

Valgaav smashed a feathered 'Peter Pan' hat on his head and skipped around. Xel folded his arms over his chest and watched seriously. "Okay, so what's your problem?"

"I think I'm a chicken."

"You do? How long has this been going on?"

"Ever since I was an egg!"

Before the laughter completely died down, Xel asked Zelgadiss, "What's really wrong with your brother?"

"Oh, it's true. He thinks he's a chicken."

"And how long would you say he's been acting like a chicken?"

"Three years. We would have sent him in sooner, but we needed the eggs."

Xel rolled his eyes as the audience laughed. "Well, Nurse Zelda, I'm a busy man. I say let's close up shop for the day. I've got the ladies lining up already to see me tonight, and I must see to my grooming."

"Oh, of course, doctor. What could be more important? But before we go, I have one more thing to say."

"Which is...?"

"Don't become too self-absorbed; it could affect your work. You see, there once was a doctor who was so conceited about his looks and charm that whenever he took a woman's pulse, he subtracted 10 beats to account for her being excited near him."

"Really? What a clever man!" Xelloss laughed. "Perhaps I should try something like that sometime?"

Lina led the audience into a roaring standing ovation as the three friends bowed and smiled and waved from the stage, saying repeatedly, "Thank you!"

The director and producer swept onto the stage, beaming, and then grabbed a microphone. "Oh, thank you, thank you all. You've been an extraordinary audience. Yes, yes, just marvelous!" The producer waited for the noise to die down before continuing. "We have the most exciting news! We have just been asked to take this show on the road, starting with ATLAS CITY, everyone!"

"But the play sucked!" someone in the vicinity of Gourry yelled.

"Oh, no... not the whole play, just the zombies. We'll wrap an entire musical around them!" the director reassured everyone.

The crowded roared its approval, nearly drowning out his next words. Lina strained to catch the last lines. "...thank our writer who is with us tonight. Let's give a round of applause to Martina Zoana Mel Navratilova for her stunning script!"

Martina tore out from behind the scenery, berating the sets people for not firing up the flames appropriately. Lina let out a sigh and rubbed her temples. "Gods, I was just this close to guessing that too. Now, what kind of a producer would have put up good money for a ridiculous script by that insane girl, I ask you?"

Amelia carefully folded back the last page of her play list and read, "A Mr. Zangalosky. Well, that makes sense."

"Why should it? Nothing else about this does..." Filia retorted.

"Well, that's Martina's boyfriend's father's name."

"Who?"

"Zangalus Zangalosky! You knew that, didn't you Miss Lina?"

Lina's eyes were on glued to the stage where Martina had just picked up a small flame thrower and rammed the force level to 'high', screeching, "Like this!"

A burst of fire blasted across the stage, narrowly missing the actors, who were flying left and right. The curtains caught fire, however, and toxic smoke billowed out over the now-standing crowd in the hall. Seconds later, the automatic sprinkling system switched on, adding a good drenching to the audience's suffering. Gourry alone seemed pleased.

"What are you grinning about?" Lina snapped.

"I finally figured out the title. I was waiting for the rain the whole time."

End, Graveyard Shift 23


	24. Dangerous Moves

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 24 -**Dangerous Moves-

"You know it's a bad when the bird singing outside your window is a vulture, but it's worse when you get to work and find a '60 Minutes' news team waiting outside your office."

* * *

"Move it! Excuse me! Argh! To be taller!" Lina grumbled.

After the play and after the sprinkler system had been shut down, Lina had to fight her way through a crush of girls wanting Xel's autograph. There were plenty begging for Valgaav and Zelgadiss' too, but that was a less important matter to Lina. Like waiting for him at the Cavern, once again she wasn't the center of attention. She wanted Xel's smile directed at her and her alone. She wanted to hear his voice whispering in her ear. She wanted to feel his touch. She wanted him exclusively. She wanted to be with him and him alone, the sole object of his adoration. But there he was, surrounded by enthusiastic devotees.

Xel had an arm draped around one girl's shoulders, and he was absent-mindedly stroking her arm. The producer was thrusting his way to the zombie boys in an attempt to nail down these particularly popular young men for his new venture. Soon the shouting, pushing, and damp press of bodies was more than Lina could stand. The term "womanizer" came to mind. "To hell with him!" Linamuttered crossly to herself and turned away, hurting.

Xel searched the hall for Lina, but couldn't see her distinctive hair anyplace. "Move over, honey," he told a girl blocking his view. She wouldn't budge, though, so he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her around to the side. "What was that?" he asked the producer to repeat what he had said.

Xel appeared to be happily soaking up the attention without her so Lina located Gourry standing outside the jostling crowd. "Take me out of this madhouse, okay?"

"Sure, Lina, I can do that. Yeah, it's too crowded in here. I see Valgaav, but no Zel. I was gonna call them later anyway. I'm dropping Filia off at her place, and she's already outside." Gourry pointed to one of the exits, and Lina led the way.

Zelgadiss poked him in the ribs. "I think you just lost your girl."

Xel stiffened and stared into the distance. There was Gourry touching his Lina, escorting his Lina out the door. He didn't notice that Filia was there at the tall man's side as well. "Get your fuckin' hands off her," Xel hissed between clenched teeth. "Listen, I can't concentrate in here. I'll have to get back to you later," he told the producer as he tore himself out of the fray.

"Guess we'll be in touch," the man returned with a frustrated sigh.

Filia was already waiting in Gourry's car and settled comfortably in the passenger seat up front, which meant Lina had to crawl in back. It wasn't a big deal, but only a few days before, it would have been her up front next to Gourry and Filia scrunched in back. It felt unfamiliar and a little novel, Lina decided, but she felt stranger still when Gourry stopped at her house first.

"See ya later, Lina," Gourry said with a friendly wave. He backed down the driveway and sped off to Filia's home.

Her, Lina! If he was going to spend any time visiting afterwards, it was not going to be at her place; it was going to be with Filia. Lina considered that to be unusual, bordering on the bizarre. Even when they weren't dating, Gourry had always gone out of his way to find time for Lina.

Lina had many thoughts troubling her. She had to accept that Gourry was over her, because she was a realistic girl and because she had Xel with which to replace him. Okay, she could do that; however, she thought Gourry had gotten over her pretty fast. Had Filia something to do with that? Could they possibly be more than boss and employee, or co-worker, or work partners?

Also, there were disturbing concerns over Xel's behavior tickling at the edge of her mind. Could she ever trust him to be _true_? She nearly gagged realizing what she had thought. The concept of "being true" was from some romance novel, wasn't it? Lina's musings were interrupted by an insistent knock on her door. "Yeah? Who's there?"

"Lina, it's Xel. Can I come in?"

"Xel? I thought I left you back at the theater." She had meant her words to sound harsh, but there was also a detectable tone of relief as a smile spread to her face.

"You did, but when..." He paused to alter his wording from "Gourry led you out" to "I couldn't find you, I left, too." That said, Xel wasted no time playing hard-to-get games. He took her in his arms and kissed her possessively, a hand buried in her hair as the other clasped her firmly to his chest.

Lina returned his kiss, then wiggled back to look at him, her Xel, and thought he never looked so good to her before, ghastly makeup and all. "I can tell. It was stuffy, wet, and I needed the air."

"And Gourry brought you home, I suppose?" Xel pushed. The man wasn't in the room, but he wasn't sure why.

"Him? Yeah, he's taking Filia home," Lina said easily. "Hey, you know, I'd never kissed a zombie before now."

"Ah, the makeup." Xel touched his face and smeared his ghastly makeup. The tension eased from his jaw and he smiled, relieved to know that Gourry had other duties to perform elsewhere. "I didn't even stay to take it off and clean up."

His answer pleased Lina. She smiled brightly and the cloud of doubt lifted between them. "Would you like to use my shower?"

"Okay, that would be nice. Care to join me?"

Lina caught the glint in his eye, and laughed. "Heh, heh, not this time. It'd take all night to dry my hair. No, you go ahead."

"As you wish, but, Lina, promise me I can stay the night?"

That was more like it. He was nearly begging for her. "I'd like that, sure." She smiled thinking he'd probably kiss her feet, if she asked. Worshiped like a goddess, yes, and after that, she would let him claim her as his and his alone.

Xel was a quick study and knowledgeable teacher. She grew more responsive under his hands, but she knew the best for her was yet to come. As passionate a person as she was, Lina was still too inhibited to enjoy sex to the fullest. Lina learned to anticipate his climax by slowing her movements and drawing out the moment for him. Her reward was his wide-eyed look of astonishment moments before he cried out deliriously and collapsed into a panting, sweaty, heap. And when they reopened, his eyes candidly exposed his heart. There was no secretiveness or cunning or artful pretending; there was no time-- just affection, raw and honest.

The next day they slept in late and messed around until afternoon. After that they took a drive through the country to enjoy the first fall colors. "Shall we buy a few apples?" he asked while slowing by a farm stand.

"And fresh-roasted peanuts to snack on?" Lina added hopefully. "Sure, that ought to hold us until we find a cozy place to stop for dinner." She found a stump to rest on and watched while Xel nosed around the outskirts of orchard.

How she admired his lithe body undulating beneath his clothes, especially since she could picture him naked. Her infatuation was getting out of control. Xel looked so good walking under the golden maples, that it made her heart flutter to watch him. And as the sun sank low, casting long, purple shadows across the pumpkin patch, his dusky pants, shirt, and hair melded into the landscape, mysteriously disappearing. Her breath caught and she shivered. She wanted to be with him all the time and hear his voice and feel his touch, and that could pose a future a problem. What if she were to lose him? "Get real, Lina. Just how long do I think we can last, anyway?" she said to herself. In her heart she wanted to believe they were meant for each other.

He reappeared carrying a handful of acorns. He was polishing them between his fingers as he approached. As he looked up, his amethyst-colored eyes caught hers, and he smiled. The warmth welling up inside nearly made Lina burst with joy. "It's frightening to feel so needy," she silently admitted. "But you really need his affection, don't you Lina Inverse?"

Lina resented having to need anyone, but the feeling was fleeting, this time when a strong arm drew her into a warm hug. "Ummm, are you cold, or was that a shiver of delight? No, you must be chilled with just that t-shirt. Funny, isn't it? Wasn't it only a week ago that we were sweltering and now the nights are getting cold? Oh my," he gasped slightly, "are you trying to squeeze all the air out of me?"

"Just shut up," Lina murmured into his chest, "and hold me." Lina trembled, experiencing all over again the rush of excitement she felt at his touch. He needed her too, she was certain, and that madeher needinessall more equal and acceptable.

Their drive was lovely and the dinner deluxe. Lina enjoyed the older man's taste in entertainment. It was a far cry from the high school hangouts she was used to, and he was teaching her immeasurable amounts about the world of adults, like how to eat without drawing attention. Xel never said a thing, but he adapted to his role model position naturally, treating her with respect and adoration at all times. She was definitely falling in love, and hard.

When it was time to leave, they drove the long, leisurely route back to town, not stopping until they reached the parking lot of the mortuary. "Vacation's over," Lina sighed.

"Or think of this as a few days between vacations, if that helps."

"Yeah, okay. Hey who's that?"

"Crap. You know it's a bad when the bird singing outside your window is a vulture, but it's worse when you get to work and find a '60 Minutes' news team waiting outside your office." Xel strode quickly to intercept the strangers lurking outside the locked door. "Hello, are you looking for someone in particular?"

A lady dressed in a well-tailored business suit met his handshake and smile with strong ones of her own. "Hi, I'm Charlene Dunn from the Seyruun Weekly. I'm here to interview a Mr. Valgaav Rubyeye. Might that be you?"

"No, I'm Dr. Xel Metallium," he said, smiling charmingly and squeezing her hand lightly but not releasing it.

"I could interview you, too," she offered. The cameraman closed in on the two of them, an attractive opening clip.

"Well, that depends. Do you know how many doctors does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

"Ah..." She had no idea where this conversation was leading, and she was struck dumb when she caught sight of Zelgadiss illuminated as he passed under the outside lamp.

"Ah, well, let's see what one of our other employees has to say. Hey, Zelgadiss, how many doctors does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

"Three. One to find a bulb specialist, one to find a bulb installation specialist, and one to bill it all to Medicare," Zelgadiss answered automatically. Xel and Valgaav had been teaching him parts of their lines. "Of course..." Zelgadiss took a couple steps toward the door, and paused. The corner of his mouth turned up, he looked slyly over his shoulder, gauged his timing, and then finished his thought. "It depends on whether it has health insurance."

Charlene and her crew laughed nervously. It was late; they were clustered outside a mortuary with young morticians telling weird jokes, all which contributed to their discomfort. Zelgadiss' unorthodox appearance took the stock-beautiful people by surprise. Xel squeezed her hand, but the reporter was not reassured by this and tugged to free it. At that moment, Valgaav chose to jump athletically into view to complete the scene.

"None," he said. "Doctors only sign the death certificate and phone the mortuary."

"Well, they might do _something_." Xel pretended to look offended. "They could tell it to take two aspirin and come 'round to the surgery later. Or... they could diagnose depression and prescribe benzo diazapines."

"Sure," Valgaav said with a shrug. "But the better question is: How many_ undertakers _does it take to change a light bulb?"

"That's easy," Xel said with a chuckle. "None. They'd just paint them black and go on using them."

Again, the cameraman laughed partly at the jokes but mostly at the comical delivery. Lina used the opportunity to set things straight. Putting a hand possessively on Xel's shoulder, she introduced herself. "I'm Lina Inverse and we're about to go in to work now, so if you'll just step aside I'm sure Valgaav will be take over from here. Come on, Xel. Let him deal with the talking head."

Xel dropped the lady's hand and smiled. Yes, he would have to give up flirting for awhile, if he were to keep Lina. "And that was my girlfriend, who also works here. It was nice to meet you, Charlene."

While Zelgadiss and Xel began a particularly messy autopsy, Val settled on a tall stool under the hot lights and worked at looking intelligent. Charlene kept her back to the work being done in the morgue while straightening the lines of her shirt and preparing her introduction into the camera. "Ready to roll."

"We're at the Rubyeye Mortuary and Funeral Home in Seyruun. Today, I'm speaking to a very handsome young man. Let's begin with your name."

"Valgaav Rubyeye."

"Okay, Mr. Rubyeye..."

"Ah, that's my dad. Just call me Valgaav, please."

"Certainly. Well then, Valgaav. Tell me what your position is."

"I'm a licensed funeral director, but mostly I'm in charge of the graveyard shift embalming and autopsy room."

"And how many years in have you been in this position?"

"A couple, but I've done various jobs here for about six years. It's a family business. Has been for three generations, now."

"Tell me about that."

"The Rubyeye Mortuary and Funeral Home was established in 1917 by the Honorable Shabranigdo-- my great-grandfather. In those days, embalming was done in the home of the deceased. Around 1945, the year my grandfather, Shabranigdo Jr. – he had the same name, you see– was born, the funeral home became the site of embalming and funeral services. My father took over the business in 1980. In 1999, I started my official training and working part time, though I'd been doing stuff for him longer than that. So far this year, business is up a bit because we hired on a full graveyard shift doing crime scene investigative stuff and started pickups."

"That makes you how old?"

"Nineteen, almost 20."

"Only nineteen? Then you're still in school, or are you working here full time?"

"I graduated high school early, so I've had a couple years of college at the University of Atlas City. The mortuary science degree I got on the job so I'm board-certified."

"How did you get your current job?"

"My dad owns and operates the funeral home. So nepotism, I guess," he added with a shy grin.

"What was your first job?"

"My very first? Well, I remember helping dress the bodies with my older brothers. I was about 6 years old and my Dad would say "Mind over matter. Let's get this done and go eat supper." Sometimes I didn't really feel like eating much. But I didn't start the embalming part, which was the date I was giving you, until I was 13."

"Your brothers aren't in the business any more?"

"No, it didn't suit them, or they didn't suit Dad. It's not for everyone."

"What are your hours these days?"

"Mine are from 9 PM to 5 AM, Monday through Friday, but the business runs basically 24/7, never know when someone needs us. The sooner we start the process of embalming the easier it is, so we go out any time of the day or night and take the body to the funeral home and embalm it. Autopsies take longer and get scheduled."

"What's the first thing you do when you get to work?"

"Usually read the obituaries in the paper to see what everybody else is doing. And, that was a joke. Really." He blushed slightly, cleared his throat, and then continued. "Um, actually, I change into coveralls and check the work listed on the clipboard."

"What time of day do things get tense in your job?"

"Tense? Basically anytime. Back a year or so ago, the most tense time was when I was here by myself and I'd have to embalm, meet with a family, do some supply ordering, and then some emergency autopsy would come in. Now, I got lots of help and the tension is mostly between _them_."

Both their eyes traveled over to where Xel, Zelgadiss, and Lina were in a conversation over a cadaver. "If you're having a good day at work, what is it that makes it good?" she asked.

"When people are pleased with the way their loved one looks in the casket. If they can have a good picture of the person in their mind it helps to bring the reality of the death home to them, so I try to make the person look as much like they did in life as I can. I don't do the dressing or makeup; our funeral director likes to do those finishing touches, and he's really skilled at it. If it's been an autopsy, then finding the cause of death, which will put the deceased's relatives at ease, is rewarding."

"Do you ever have to take work home?"

"I tend to leave the dead lie; I usually don't take them home with me. Trouble is, my current roommates are relations and also working nights with me. Not that we talk work, but _they_ come home with me, if you're tracking me." Xel and Zelgadiss starting laughing in the background, so the taping paused for a few minutes to wait them out. "Come on, guys! Shut up so I can get done with this, okay?" Valgaav cried out.

"Yeah...fine..."

The camera began to roll again. "What does your job contribute to society?"

"Well, if it's done well, I hope it contributes to the honoring of loved ones in a meaningful and respectful way. If you can't face death, you can't really face life."

"Do you expect to finish your working life in this career?"

"I would say probably in some capacity. It can be a very high-stress job, and I can see myself becoming even more stressed when my father retires, if I keep at it. He's 45 years old, and I think when you spend you whole life caring for others and working closely with people in intense pain, it can wear on you. I have other ideas for the future, maybe, too."

"Hypothetically speaking, if you could have two more careers, at any time, what would they be?"

"I'd like to be a forensic anthropologist someday and/or a professional actor-singer – you know, like a rock star."

"Rock star?"

"I'm in a play now, and a musical number is part of the role. It's been more fun than I ever expected."

"Is that what do you do to relieve stress, then?"

"No, not really. Actually, I climb rock walls a few days a week and I try to think positively about things. And there's my favorite quote from my dad: 'Don't run if you don't have the ball.'"

"So, your father must be your workplace hero?"

"Yeah, definitely my dad. He has high standards and excellent character. He makes me proud to be in the funeral business, and, although he has his faults, working for him has been the greatest learning experience I could have."

"What's an unforgivable trait in a colleague?"

"When they don't care about the family, when all they care about is the bottom line and are careless or callous about the deceased."

"When you have one of those days when you think you can't face the job again, what gets you out the door and off to work?"

"The outside chance that I may be able to help someone get through a difficult time. Well, either that or my cousin, Xel, over there, who usually drives us." He smiled behind his hand.

"Speaking of getting out the door," Lina muttered.

Charlene took the hint, and the interview came to a close. She thanked them all for sparing her some of their valuable time, shaking hands with Valgaav and nodding to the others elbow deep in gore. The crew wrapped and carried out their equipment with dispatch; they'd seen enough and smelled enough of the cadaver to hasten their retreat remarkably. Valgaav walked them out of the building, waved politely, and parted at the outside door.

When he returned, Zelgadiss and Xel were discussing their current autopsy. "Cardiac arrest is what kills nearly everybody. That isn't the point. What caused this woman's heart to stop is the mystery," Xel was telling him.

Valgaav suited up in the changing room, and prepared to take over for Xel. He felt Lina's eyes watching him closely. "I suppose you're wondering why that happened. Well, I have no idea why Dad does that, but every year he gets someone to come interview me that way."

"I'll bet it's to drum up some business," Lina offered.

"Or to drum up some hot looking babes for you to date," Xel added maliciously.

"I'll collect the gastric contents and see what I can see," Zelgadiss said in a raised voice, disrupting what he thought might turn into an argument, and carried his gruesome load to the sink.

"Yeah." Valgaav smiled suddenly, however, and chuckled at the two different but likely explanations. "Probably so."

"Anyway, we're on the countdown now until summer's over," Lina said cheerfully as she sauntered over to where Zelgadiss was removing the stomach contents. "Minty fresh!" Lina commented with surprise.

"Yeah, that's a new one on me. Can't complain, though."

"You say _mint_?" Xel asked. "See if you can find some leaves, but even if you can't, save the stomach liquid. I have an idea." He ripped off his gloves and got the phone to the police. "Investigator Evins? Yeah, I'm Xel at the Rubyeye funeral home and I'm doing an autopsy on a woman here tagged with your ID on the paperwork. You found her? Yeah, she just came in this day about noon. I wasn't on duty. Did you search her trash? Kitchen. Yes, I'm wondering if you discovered several used tea bags or a near-empty tin in her cupboard. In particular, a type of _mint_ tea. Yeah, I'll hold."

Val was suited up and continuing where Xel had left off. Zelgadiss was muttering to Lina. "She must have eaten the stuff. I can't believe she swallowed these many leaves sipping tea. There, that's all of it."

"Want me to weigh that for ya?" Lina asked.

"Thanks, sure, then record the number on the form and show it to Xel." At Zel's nod, she carried off the stainless steel bowl.

"You found an empty box of what? Pennyroyal. Yeah, that's a member of the mint family. Some drink it to break up gas and prevent nausea. It really is only toxic if its oil is ingested in large amounts. Hold on. What have you got for me, Lina?" Xel's eyes twinkled as she neared him. "Okay, thanks. That much? Oh my... Yes, the deceased swallowed a great deal. Well, it induces abortion, but in massive quantities it can cause cardiac arrest. Probably, but we'll test for pregnancy, too. Sure thing. Bye."

They completed the autopsy, closed her up, and sealed the case. Another death and mystery solved– the last for this team. After that, the last few days of work were uneventful. Everyone was consumed with preparations for the "Wolfpack Party," as it had become known.

* * *

Xelloss arranged for airline limousine pick-up of all the participants in his little caper, their bags, and the boxed equipment. Since most of the stuff had been collected and stored compactly in the days prior, the van stopped at Valgaav's first for loading. Valgaav, Xel, and Zelgadiss were done in five minutes, and then it was on to Gourry's apartment. Gourry carried out a backpack of clothing as well as a long gym bag, which wasn't filled with athletic gear. His treasured heirloom rifle wouldn't leave his sight, if he could help it. Each of the girls brought along a single, small carry-on bag, due to weight and space limitations on the private jet.

"We'll stop at the private hangars, where cousin Sherra has the jumbo version of our jet ready. You can see it beyond the repair sheds." Xel was excited or nervous or both and kept up a constant patter all the way to the airport. "Looks like excellent visibility. 'Course, it's fall and the best weather on the island is in the fall. Dry. Warmer and drier and with less fog. Fog's the worst. Landings are close to impossible if the fog's dense."

"Would someone find him a magazine and distract him?" Filia asked.

He was unstoppable all the way to the private hangar. Sherra was waiting at the plane and greeted them professionally. She directed her passengers to the steps leading to the cabin, and showed them where to stash their belongings while a two-man ground crew stowed the boxes in the underbelly hold.

"Fasten your seatbelts, everyone. We have clearance for take-off."

The sky opened before them, wide, blue, and clear. Seyruun was reduced to a toy town, then disappeared altogether as the plane rapidly gained altitude and distance. Sylphiel blanched dramatically and clung to Zelgadiss' arm. She had started out that morning feeling queasy, another confirmation that she was indeed pregnant, and the flight only worsened it. Knowing that she hadn't confided in Zelgadiss, the baby's father, added to her anxiety. Everyone else gripped the armrests.

"Steep climb," Gourry yelled.

Xel twisted around in his co-pilot's seat to face the passengers. "Regulations to clear the city with a minimum of noise," he shouted over the engine roar.

Lina grinned. "I love this part!"

The rapid acceleration took them far over the land. The ocean appeared on the horizon as the plane leveled off at cruising altitude. Sherra gave them a 'thumbs up' sign and clicked on the intercom. "Okay kids, that's over. We'll be traveling for a few hours so sit back and enjoy the view."

"The scenery is lovely, if you like endless expanses of blue sky and blue water," Filia commented to Gourry.

Gourry took one look past her shoulders. He had never flown before, and when separated from the land with firm ground beneath his feet and no visual frame of reference outside, Gourry felt a tinge of vertigo. He paled drastically, then confided, "Guess I'm not much for flying either."

Xel turned his head back, a bemused smile plastered on his face. "If you ever want to try a hand at flying a plane yourself, you just have to ask. I could take you for a roll." He and Filia exchanged nasty faces.

"I don't know how you all can stand the man," Filia muttered, and then pulled the shade over her window and shut her eyes for a rest.

Amelia was jittery so she chattered to Valgaav, who, in turn, looked enviously over at Zelgadiss. Zelgadiss had on a headset and had his head back and eyes closed with Sylphiel resting on his shoulder. He appeared perfectly happy in quiet repose. "Amelia, hey, leave some for later, okay?" Valgaav said with a quick smile. "Here, you just try and get a little sleep now. We have a long day and night ahead of us." He pulled her into his chest and whispered, "Sleep..."

She giggled but obeyed, because what he'd said was right. "Sleep, okay."

Lina had a seat to herself, since Xelloss was in the cockpit, so she stretched out across two seats and flung an arm over her eyes. She wanted to dream about flying to distant lands and starting a life of adventure. She could picture Xelloss at her side and smiled contentedly. Yes, she could fit him nicely into that schema, and with that pleasant thought, she fell instantly to sleep.

"You certainly have collected an eclectic bunch of friends," Sherra said to her older cousin.

"One never knows whom it is that you might need in a pinch," Xel replied.

After an uneventful landing, Sherra ripped off her pilot's headset, flipped on a touring cap, and pulled on her driving gloves. "All up for the cottage tour? Okay then, please exit to the right and climb aboard the island van."

"She's in a good mood," Lina said to Xel.

"Yeah, well, if we fail and I get killed then she's in line for the inheritance." He wasn't being serious, but Lina's sudden look of concern made him think again of what he had just said. "Just kidding, Lina. I'm sure Sherra has no claim or even an interest in this place. Tell you what. Why don't you and I ride in my car?"

"Okay," Lina agreed, her worries eased for the time being. She had avoided thinking about the dark reality of their adventure. The possibility that someone could be hurt or killed was too awful to consider. They were all far too young to die.

"Damned, bumpy ride," Lina complained to Xelloss.

"It's worse for those in the van, if that makes you feel any better." Xelloss nodded to the van they were following.

"A little." The car lurched over a heavily pocketed stretch of roadway. "This is out of the way," she observed.

"Which is good for us. This is the road to the family shrine."

"Doesn't see much traffic."

"No one comes this way. There's access into the crypt from the labs, but it wouldn't be wise for us to try that route again. No lab visits. Not with this crowd. There it is- our cabin."

The cottage was at best a neglected, rustic cabin. "Just stow the stuff as fast as possible," Xel told them all. "We should find the shrine while it's still light out."

The cartons of equipment had to be opened and the items organized. They used the 'kitchen' area of the cabin to spread out and re-sort the items into backpacks. In addition to his family heirloom rifle, Gourry brought supplementary hunting knives to distribute. Zelgadiss showed off his box of guns and ammo from his parent's storage locker. Valgaav had accessed his father's gun collection. Taken as a whole, it was an impressive show of potential force.

Lina and Amelia were excited to get a handgun, a knife, and a rifle; that is, until Xel showed off his 44 magnum– his weapon of choice. Lina demanded a trade: Gourry's 33-odd for it, but he refused in the nicest way possible.

Lina gritted her teeth and tried one more time. "I'll offer you whatever you want."

"I've already had everything I want of yours." He winked to prove it was meant in jest, but Lina pounded him repeatedly with her fists. He didn't give in, though. Lina calmed somewhat knowing she'd get it from him eventually, when he was less cocky.

Filia admitted to being a fair target shooter, and accepted the loan of one of Valgaav's, if anyone trusted her not to pull it on them, instead of protecting them. Xel and Valgaav were well aware of Filia's allegiance to Milgasia's clan, and that she was assigned to watch Xel. Xel wasn't thrilled by the prospect. "I consider you to be in the way. In fact, Amelia has standing orders to shoot _you_ if you try to undermine my efforts."

"Don't think you can intimidate me, you creature of the dark," Filia responded. "I just offered to my help and all you can do is to threaten me?"

Sherra halted the heightening animosity before a fight broke out. "He doesn't mean it. It's just his twisted sense of humor. It's almost sunset, guys. You better hurry!"

"Suits me!" Filia sniffed. "Bastard," she hissed beneath her breath.

"Bitch," Xel grumbled in a low tone.

Sherra led them along the weedy path to the shrine. "I timed the walk. You can get there in ten minutes at this pace."

"We'll run back, then, if we start to lose our light," Xel told her. Her meaningful look startled him. "What? You hear something I might need to know?"

"Possibly. There are rumors, and that's all, nothing I've seen or know for a fact. But what I heard from a guard friend of mine is that there is a clone of Rezo."

Zelgadiss exploded. "Clone! That's not possible! That kind of research isn't ... isn't... They're years away from creating anything like that!"

"Well, apparently not Zelas' 'they.' The story was that there are lots of clones working in the prison. Ones that were created as part of her other testing program..."

"Her search for unending life," Xel put in.

"I'll bet that's what we saw. Those creepy things lying in those tubes. Clones," said Lina.

"Could be."

"Are you sure the clone's Rezo? Why him?" Zelgadiss asked.

"Did you know your grandfather's legally blind?" Xel asked.

Zelgadiss stopped dead in his tracks and turned toward Xel. "Where did that piece of info come from?"

"It was on his work record along with the DNA screening. He's been going blind for years. I suspect it's a side effect of the drugs. Imagine that! What if after all the youth and beauty it preserves, it turns out to blind the poor users? It's no good after all."

"Unless that's what the clone is for. A way to correct the flaw." Sherra checked her watch. "Better move it, guys."

"I don't see why she thinks my DNA can provide some improved 'cure' because of something in the genes," Zelgadiss said, then set off after Sherra at a good pace.

The family shrine was an unimposing structure constructed from the same rock as the hillside into which it was built. A glimpse of slate roof could be seen over the surrounding stone wall. The wall was topped with black ironwork to discourage intruders, as was the solid-looking gate. They stood at the gate looking into the unattended garden beyond.

"It was once pretty," Amelia said generously.

"Good thing native plants are tough," Valgaav said. "A real tangle of weeds."

Zelgadiss looked dispirited. "I doubt anyone important is buried in that place."

"Everyone who dies on the island ends up somewhere here."

"That could be thousands of bodies you'll have to look through!" Amelia cried out.

"Not in the family part. We'll put off searching through the inmate tombs completely."

"Still, it doesn't look very big."

"Remember, I said this was a _crypt_. The burial chambers are all underground. We'll have to enter the catacombs to find the vaults."

"What else do you know about this place?" Sylphiel asked.

Xel smiled, happy supply them with plenty of details he'd learned over the past few days of searching. "In vaults containing burials after 1815, the better coffins should mostly have a lead component. Those might weigh more than a quarter of a ton, so we'd never be able to open them."

"Wouldn't you expect Dolphinia to be buried in one of those?"

"Yes, with a real headstone and foot marker-- unless she wasn't supposed to be found. I'm counting on that, too. I don't think mother ever intended anyone to locate and dig up her sister, so she would make her grave appear ordinary."

Lina asked, "So why bury her at all? Why not hide her body in a box or at sea or something that leaves no traces that can be brought back and traced to her?"

"Because she's also a superstitious woman who is unsure about the afterlife, and to be sure of her own future, would be afraid notto_ bury_ her here."

"Hnnn," Zelgadiss murmured, his eyes on the heavy chain and padlock holding the gate shut. "We'll need something to get past this."

Gourry and Valgaav both looked over the lock, which was rusted shut, and the chain was very thick. Valgaav shook his head. "I'll have to look over the cabin and see what there is to break it. Cutters of some sort."

"Tire iron?" Lina mused. "They still put those in cars?"

"Not mine," Xel said.

"We can check the van. You've seen enough? Think you can get here in the dark tonight?" Sherra asked them.

Xel nodded. "Thanks, we'll be fine. Now, as I was getting to..."

"Tell us on the way," Filia interrupted. She set off back toward the cabin, the others peeling themselves away from the mysterious gate to join her.

"Okay," Xel shrugged. "From what I could figure out from the scanty maps of the tomb, the uppermost layer of coffins within vaults will be hard to check because headroom is restricted. Oh, I suspect some of the burial chambers may be sealed– as in _airtight_. Maybe not. But once we break one open, the coffins are exposed to the air, and the decay processes rapidly affect both organic and inorganic materials, so we'll have to work fast.

"Where coffins are sealed within a vault via a front wall, it is sensible to dismantle the front walls of the vaults a coffin's depth at a time, inhibiting decay, if we have the choice."

Amelia shivered, but only partly from the steadily cooling air. The topic of exhumation was chilling. "So, what kind of...shape do you expect to find...what you're looking for?"

Xel embraced the moment. He was very knowledgeable on the subject of burials, as was Valgaav. The two had often discussed it over dinner. "Soft tissue may be preserved in sealed lead coffins, but it can also survive wooden coffins in earth. In most crypts the majority of the individuals will be skeletonized, but some individual burials will retain soft tissue. This all means that what we will be getting into, well, the condition and completeness of the human remains will vary enormously."

"Gods, I don't know how you can deal with this. How can you imagine digging around dead people like that?" Filia asked.

"I'm sorry that the processes of putrefaction on human remains are physically repulsive to you. Just be glad that there are exceptional people like us forensic scientists, forensic archaeologists, mortuary and medically trained personnel that do it for you," Xel snapped back defensively.

Valgaav was tired of their constant bickering. He cleared his throat. "Enough! You're forgetting what we're here for. I might as well tell you all what to look for. I did some research, too, and I wanna tell you about it." Everyone shut up and gave him their full attention. "All right. Well, it seems that DNA survives best and free from contamination in teeth and small bones. Hair is likely to be completely decayed, so don't count on finding that. So, it is recommended that two teeth, and in particular the canine teeth because they are simple in shape and easily pulled out, and two metatarsals from the feet or metacarpals from the hands should be removed. Don't clean the samples in any way. Just store them in these little plastic containers, which we'll put in the cooler as soon as possible and freeze."

Lina observed Xel fingering a sample face mask as he listened to his cousin. "Where did you get that from? I didn't see you bring that along," Lina said.

"I wasn't sure what we might need on this first visit. From my map, the gate wasn't barred and I was hoping to get a peek inside the catacombs. Shall I demonstrate how to put this on and adjust it to fit properly?"

Amelia giggled. "Have you been practicing to be a steward for the airlines?"

"No, do you think I ought to? It's not too late for a career change," he said, smiling.

"Yes it is," Lina said, pounding him in the arm. "Just forget her and get on with business."

"I think I'm done with our face mask system with air filtration to PP3 standard. Any questions?"

"Plenty, but they can wait," Zelgadiss muttered and picked up his pace down the path. "It's getting dark."

After that, everyone jogged back to the cabin. Sherra traded keys with Xel, wished them all good luck, and drove his car back to the garage close to the airstrip. Xel climbed into the driver's seat of the van. "Party time! All aboard the castle express!"

As the van turned up the road, a soaring roofline stood out in sharp contrast against the fading sunset. The dark building looming out of the forest set back the party mood for some of the van's occupants.

Xel felt the oppressive mood settle upon the others. "It's better on the inside. I always told mother she ought to paint the place a brighter color or set out a few cheerful flower boxes. I know _I _will when it's time to sell."

Lina chuckled. "He's joking guys. It's actually just as inhospitable on the inside. Well, not the bedrooms, exactly, but the dining hall is. Are we going in there?"

"Let's see what's lit up. That's always a clue."

"The front door's lit. That's a good sign, right? Like we're expected?" Sylphiel asked.

"You think having Zelas Metallium expecting you to arrive is a good sign?" Filia asked.

Even Xel had no comeback for that. He hesitated at the door. He didn't know exactly what to expect from his mother tonight, but he knew her well enough to be mentally prepared for anything. He would have to be nimble-minded, and so would his cousin. Valgaav he could count on since the two of them had already considered a couple strategies, but he wasn't certain how the others would like their roles. Perhaps he should warn them.

"What is it?" Lina asked.

"I just want to warn everyone that a few spontaneous acts on my part and Valgaav's will take place. Before you get all excited, I don't know exactly what or when, but I can tell you why." He waited for everyone's undivided attention, then said, "It's even more important than ever to show Zelgadiss has support in high places– Gaav, for instance. And not my telling her. She has to see it for herself. Also, we might have to defer attention off Lina or on one of you, Sylphiel, for example. We don't want to make it easy for her to see a way to get at one of us through a weaker link."

"I'm not really sure I understand what you mean to do," Sylphiel said.

He and Valgaav exchanged looks and both smiled. "Let's keep it light. Think of this as an improv theater party," Valgaav said.

Their footfalls echoed along the cavernous hallway to the dining room. "Big place," Gourry commented. "Plenty room to swing a sword."

"Damn! I knew there was something this hallway was good for. Sword fighting!" Xel laughed and stabbed at a gloomy landscape painting with a pretend blade. "You ever learn fencing?" Xel asked.

"Learn it!" Lina butted in. "Gourry coached the team in high school, I mean there was a teacher there, but he knew everything. Zelgadiss and I got pretty good, wouldn't you say Zelly?"

"I thought we were very good. Only Gourry could beat us."

"You were good in archery, too." Amelia smiled and blushed at the memory of the handsome Zelgadiss with his arms wrapped around her to correct her hold. "I don't think I ever hit a bull's eye."

"It takes practice to develop the arm strength. You were a dead eye shot with the pistol on the shooting range, so you are skilled." He put that as kindly as possible, for him, but avoided her eyes. He had been aware of Amelia's infatuation with him when they were in archery class, but ignored her mostly. He hadn't been a good friend to anyone. Things had changed for him now. Only his true friends stuck with him through the awful recovery after the accident, and Amelia was one them. His eyes slid to meet hers, and he smiled. "After all the bowling, I'm sure your arms are stronger now. We ought to give it a try again sometime."

"What a good idea! I'd like that a lot, Mr. Zelgadiss!"

Valgaav closed in on his two friends. "You know they say three's a crowd."

Zelgadiss shook his head and parted from Amelia. He hadn't gotten far, when one of Valgaav's lanky arms caught him around the shoulders. Valgaav was chuckling as he extended his other arm around Amelia's waist, and together the threesome entered the dining room.

Xel and Lina were in the lead, followed by the threesome. Gourry, Filia and Sylphiel filed in last. The dining room table was laden with platters of roasted meats and vegetables, baskets of crusty rolls, and tureens of soups and casseroles. "Now that's a spread," Lina gasped.

"Is all this just for us?" Gourry asked with delight. His eyes flickered between the table and the owner of the castle.

Zelas rose from her chair, greeting her young guests. "Good evening. I wasn't sure what music you'd like so... Ah, there you are Xel, darling. Would you see to that for me? You...you fine, tall, young man. Yes, the food is all for you, so eat plenty and enjoy yourselves. No hard feelings for winning the bowling tournament. Now where is...?" She paused, her eyes darting over to Valgaav, " No, you're not Gaav's little boy, are you? Valgaav... I can't believe how you have grown. I last saw you when you were just a small thing. Same unkempt tuft of green hair, though. And so tall! Xel, darling, such nice tall friends you have. Too bad you take after your father in that respect." Zelas pulled Xel to the side. "I'd like to speak to Zelgadiss. You can arrange that, can't you?"

Xel shook his head, and said lightheartedly, "Well, I don't know. It depends upon Valgaav's mood. He's not a sharing guy, ordinarily."

Zelas looked over just in time to catch Valgaav pull the unprepared Zelgadiss into a kiss. "No. You didn't tell me he was a favorite of Gaav's son. " She frowned and searched her son's eyes for the truth.

Xel wisely kept them hidden under a fringe of hair. He also turned to block the view of Zelgadiss trying to punch Valgaav's lights out. "I was as surprised at the discovery as you."

"Rezo didn't care how I used his grandson. We had that obstacle out of the way, but my brother Gaav is another matter."

"He's such a _dark_ horse."

"He can't be _bought_. That's my point. And he's got his own power structure to consider. How he got that high appointment in the Cepheid empire I don't know."

"Did you ever think his adopting Valgaav didn't cement his favor? Milgasia sends his people to Gaav for all their funeral business." Xel could sense his mother's growing dismay at this turn of events. He hoped he hadn't gone too far. He hoped that later she wouldn't try some act of desperation.

Zelas' eyes steeled into flint-like hardness. "So, how is that little girlfriend of yours coming along?"

Xel hid his expression as he gestured Lina's way and said loudly. "Lina? Oh, she and Gourry are going out, I think." Filia was the closest female. He made a quick calculation and then a rash decision. "Filia is my latest, right love?"

"What?" Filia gasped as she was unexpectedly swept up into Xel's arms. He held her to his chest and leaned into her ear, pretending to nuzzle her as he whispered, "Relax, play along." Aloud he said with a chuckle, "She's a little shy. This was to be our first date and we hadn't told anyone else. Sorry, Fil, to blow our secret."

Filia barely concealed her contempt of the man at that instant. One glance over at Gourry and Lina and their pleading looks to "play along" convinced her to breathe. "You should have waited, _Xelly_, or at least warned me first."

Xel noticed that his mother's concentration was on something other than Filia's words; she was staring at the pendant around her neck. What was that? The blue bauble signified something important. Damn, Cepheid shrine priestess of the highest order! Why had Filia worn such a thing to this? Here, where Zelas was almost certain to see the blatant warning: "Milgasia is watching you."

Xel was just about to concoct an explanation– something along the lines of: "Oh, you like the necklace? I got it in trade for a free burial"– when he noted a change in his mother's expression.

She smiled cunningly. "Xel, dear, can I have a word with you? Won't take but a minute. I'll let you have him right back, dear," Zelas said to Filia as she tugged on Xel's arm with two delicate fingers.

Filia pushed apart from Xel so forcefully that she nearly propelled Xel out of the room. Xel excused himself and stepped into the doorway. "What is it?"

Zelas smiled and patted his cheek. "I underestimated you dear. Here I thought you were bringing all these kids along for entertainment, but you have included a hostage. Gaav, the turncoat, and all the followers of Cepheid be damned."

Xel quickly came to grips with the new quandary. Lina was out of danger, Zelgadiss was safe as long as Valgaav was nearby, but he had put Filia into a very bad situation. Filia had come to save Zelgadiss and stop Zelas, was she now going to have to forfeit her life? It was a cost Xel might be willing to take, or would have been a few months ago, but since he had fallen in love with Lina, he cared about everyone in general. This adventure was getting more complicated and difficult than he liked. He should never had agreed to bring the girls along. "That is _one_ way to look at it. You could also consider it preventative on Milgasia's part. If Filia discovers any possible danger here, Milgasia can have police forces sent in and bring the court action against the business. He could shut down all your operations. Just another possibility to consider."

Xelloss smiled beatifically. Zelas studied his face, weighing his loyalty and honesty. He appeared calm and unconcerned. From her point of view, Xel was strong-willed enough to defy her. He surely wouldn't bring the enemy into her home and rub her nose in it. He was too smart and obedient. She had always been able to depend on her son to come through for her. In the end, she believed that her son had to cope with Valgaav and Filia's presence the best he could, and so would she. However, she did not like how her son enjoyed springing little surprises at the last moment. "You have always had an unpredictable sense of humor. I don't like it."

Zelas looked askance at the alien looking young man beside Valgaav. She would have to make her offer to Zelgadiss quickly. "Bring Zelgadiss to me, without the other boy."

"Okay." Xel bowed slightly, and breathed a sigh of relief when he was out of earshot. "Hey, Zelgadiss! Come here." He dropped his voice, whispering, "Whatever she wants, tell her you'll think about it. Don't reject her outright." Loudly he laughed, "Mom wants a closer look at your hair. I think she's thinking of having hers done the same way."

Both Zelgadiss and Zelas denied the possibility simultaneously. It had been a silly thing for Xel to say, but it successfully lightened the mood and covered his anxiety. Zelas made pleasant conversation with Zelgadiss, but only received inaudible grunts and mumbling in reply. "Gaav has told me the nicest things about you. He's highly rated your work at the morgue. I'd like to offer you more variety and better pay. You could continue to work with Xelloss in the most modern facilities available."

Zelgadiss wanted to say flat out "no," but he heeded his cousin's counsel. It would make no sense making an enemy of the woman whose sister he was hoping to dig up. There would be time for that later when he helped shut down her sick laboratory operations. "I was planning to go to college starting next week, but your offer sounds interesting. I'd like to think it over."

"Of course. Sleep on it. I could have a tour arranged for you tomorrow."

"Which I would never return from, I'll bet," Zelgadiss thought to himself, but managed a weak smile and said aloud, "Thanks."

"Yes, you enjoy your weekend party, dear, and then Monday, we'll send back the riff-raff and get down to business. You'll be staying here at the castle, won't you?"

"Here?" Xel jumped in. "No, they are all excited about camping at the beach, since the weather is as good as it ever gets."

Zelas parted company a little while later. The kids nibbled or gorged, awaiting Xel's signal to leave. Gourry made his way over to him and said, "You had me going back there."

"Oh?" Xel thought a moment, but couldn't come up with what the other man meant. "How do you mean?"

"You and Filia. When you told yer mom you and Filia were, you know."

"Yes, well, I didn't want my mother to think she could get to me through Lina."

"Oh, well, that's good." Gourry smiled. "I didn't wanna haveta break your jaw again."

"Say what?" Then it dawned on Xel that Gourry must like Filia. "Oh, my... Sorry about that, really. I'll keep my hands off her from now on."

"Be sure you do." Gourry was still smiling, but his tone was serious. He dropped back, making room for Lina to clamp onto Xel's arm.

"What was all that about?" Lina asked.

"Male dominance."

"Oh, that. You know there is no such thing."

Xel smiled. "Not any more."

**End Graveyard Shift 24.

* * *

**


	25. The Exhumation

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 25 -**The Exhumation-

"Pickled and jammed in a box, then stacked in piles and stuffed...like olives."—Lina, about dead remains

* * *

Xel was running down his mental list of things to do. He had done everything possible to assure them of success. Nothing could be left to chance, and yet there were so many ways things could fail, so many "unpredictables." He wasn't expecting Lina to caper around behind him and steal the van keys, for one.

"Where are we going?" Lina asked, jingling the keys tauntingly.

"Lina, no." Xel reached for the keys, his voice low in warning.

Lina bristled. "Hey, back off! I drove a van for a job all summer, remember? I'm good at it, 'course the passengers were cold and quiet, heh, heh..." Her attempt at humor fell flat.

With a resigned shrug, he climbed into the passenger seat up front. This was no time for a fight, he knew, especially with someone who held onto their opinions as tenaciously as Lina. The others had already found seats inside. "First, we stop back at the cabin. We need to collect our equipment and rest a couple hours."

Lina snapped back sharply, "_Rest? _You gotta be kidding. Let's get this business done."

"Yes, I'd like that, too," he returned with an edge to his voice, "but I'd rather wait until the lab activities shut down for the night, eliminating the chance that someone might be hauling a body. I don't expect it, especially in the part of the crypt where we will be, but it's safer."

"Safer, right," she repeated sourly.

The sky was dark with a sprinkling of stars, but there was no moon to light their way, no street lights; in fact, there were no lights at all. Lina concentrated on the strange road, getting directions from Xel when needed. Both were put off by the other's irritable tone of voice. She parked in back of the cabin, hiding the van behind a hedge. Everyone climbed out and entered the cabin except Zelgadiss and Lina. She was about to follow Xel in, when Zelgadiss touched her arm.

"Come here," he beckoned, indicating that she should remain outside with him.

"Huh? What's up?"

He pulled her into the darkness. "I just wanted to talk."

His hesitancy to be open around the others made her think he had either something really important to say, or bad news. "So, talk. I've got the beginnings of a headache so make it short and to the point."

Zelgadiss nearly changed his mind, but Lina had been a good friend to him in the past and was more vulnerable then she would admit. "Lately... a few times in the last few weeks... Xel hasn't made it back to his room _lately_, a few times. I thought you should know. You seemed to be getting close, and I know you dropped Gourry."

Lina could tell Zelgadiss disapproved of her choice of boyfriends. "Not that it's any of your business, but Xel was with me those times. What else have you got?"

Zelgadiss was too surprised at her revelation to move on, though. "With you? He spent the night with _you?_"

"Yes! Keep your voice down!" she yelled, ignoring her own advice. She hated that Zelgadiss found the vulnerable spot in her heart: Xel's reputed infidelity. "What? You were worried he was going out behind my back? Thanks, but I don't need a busybody keeping tabs on me or my boyfriend. I don't stick my nose into your business."

Zelgadiss' narrowed his eyes, his shoulders tensed, and his temper flared. "No? Then what are you doing here? It was just going to be us guys, then Xel couldn't get you to stay, and so now we got all the others here, in danger and in the way."

"We're here to make sure you screw ups get out of here in one piece." Lina's temper could match her hot-headed friend's sneer for sneer, insult by insult. "Now, you done talking?"

He spun on a heel, turning back to the cabin door. "I shouldn't waste my breath." He paused, looking over his shoulder into her fiery eyes. "Be careful, Lina. You really don't know him. He's not like Gourry, who you've known for years and grew up with. Xel's got a very dark past and a questionable future. He's dangerous."

"So am I," Lina said, pushing Zel out of her way.

Her anger melted away under Xel's hungry stare as she entered the cabin. To have the exclusive attention of the older man set her heart to racing. She imagined being alone with him, his hands on her. Her imagination stripped him naked, then ripped him apart out of resentment for her need and desire for him. "What are you looking at?" she barked.

"You. Everything okay?" he asked.

Lina heard Zelgadiss enter the cabin, but kept her back to him, intent on her boyfriend. To Xel's surprise, she reached up, grabbed hunk of his sleek, dark hair, and pulled Xel down into a kiss. She nipped his bottom lip as she broke the kiss. "Yeah, Zelgadiss is just a meddling idiot."

"I see." He straightened, eyes following Zelgadiss' furtive move to the other side of the room. Xel was careful not to rub his tender scalp or lick his swelling lip and let her know she'd hurt him. "Well, everyone's laying out a sleeping bag on the floor. I suggest you do the same, and, if you'd like, you can come over here by me, while I stir up the fire. You don't have to sleep, just close your eyes for a little while." His words flowed in measured tones, keeping his tone even and placating her mood. He had no time for diversions. After the stressful interplay with his mother, Xel needed to garner his strength for the long night ahead.

"Yeah, okay." She had hoped for a little more passion in return for her bold kiss, but figured the man was getting nervous.

Meanwhile, Gourry noticed his friend's sour expression and knew that his talk with Lina hadn't gone well. When Zelgadiss passed by on his way to Sylphiel, Gourry whispered, "You tried. Some of it will soak in 'cause she's not stupid."

"She is tonight," Zelgadiss said.

"Oh..."

"What's with the meaningful 'oh'?"

"Must be that time of the month. Lina always gets, um, sorta mean then."

Zelgadiss looked across the room where he could see Xel silhouetted against the fire, helping Lina into her sleeping bag. He wondered if he should warn the man, then decided not to. "Let him discover his girlfriend's idiosyncrasies," he muttered mostly to himself.

"What was that, Zelgadiss?"

He turned to find Sylphiel's hand on the cuff of his pants. He knelt by her side, imagining her warm smile and dark eyes searching his. He knew he shouldn't let Lina get to him. Not now. Not with happiness at his fingertips. He bent over her, drawing her into a gentle kiss. "You smell good."

"Jasmine. There's room for two in my bag," she whispered.

Zelgadiss glanced furtively over his shoulder.

"No one's looking. It's too dark," she said.

He needed no further coaxing. He slipped out of his pants and shirt, and slithered into the pocket of welcoming bliss. Leave his other friends to work out their own lives for the time being, he decided.

"I hope this place warms up," Filia complained to whoever was nearest. "I don't want to freeze my butt off in here while you guys are messing around in that tomb." There was no reply, so she dropped the subject and curled up in her blanket.

Valgaav had dismissed them all from his mind and immediately escorted his young girlfriend to a private corner. His 'hanging out with the gang' days were over, he had made up his mind. He was going to buckle down, work diligently, save some bucks while Amelia finished high school, then he'd marry her and finish his degree, follow his dream. Stay out of trouble. Yeah, mostly that. "Hey, don't be nervous," he told her.

"It's cold, and I've never been on an overnight with boys present," she admitted.

"Especially me, huh?" he grinned and unzipped his sleeping bag, leaving the opening to face hers.

She nodded, blushing as she heard him remove his shirt. She felt his heat through her thin blouse as he wrapped her in his arms. His lips brushed her ear as he whispered, "Just tell me when to stop, and I will."

His hands slipped under her blouse and caressed her sides. "Take this off," he urged her. "Want to see you."

"But..." she said, gasping and pushing at his hands, "it's too dark!"

He chuckled low in his throat. "Braille, baby."

"Valgaav, I don't know..." Her voice faded off as he finished unbuttoning and pulling her arms out of the sleeves.

"I just want to hold you...keep you warm," he assured her as they cuddled closely in the dark.

"Well, I guess that would be okay." Amelia snuggled into the warmth of her boyfriend, cutting off the nagging little voice in her head telling her she was moving too fast.

Lina wanted Xel to settle down and hold her– but then again she didn't. She was annoyed that some of her other friends were settling in all cozy, while she felt pushed aside like a child. Of course, she certainly didn't want Xel hovering over her, but she didn't want to be ignored either, which was what he was doing at the moment, messing with the fire. "Aren't you lying down? It was your idea."

His head turned, but she couldn't see his face. "In a moment."

"Hurry up, then," she insisted.

"You don't need me to rest, Lina, but I need a moment or two to think, alone. Excuse me." Xel stood and moved off a ways where she couldn't detect him at all.

Lina rolled onto her stomach, hurt by his indifference, and listened to the sounds. The cabin creaked with the temperature drop. The fire popped and crackled. Sylphiel giggled, be it ever so quietly. "Cut it out and be quiet!" Lina yelled.

* * *

The next thing she knew, Xel was shaking her gently. "Time to go."

She opened her eyes, but he had disappeared before she could say anything more. Lanterns were lit and hanging from hooks around the room. Valgaav was pulling on a shirt and looking around for the weapons to remain in the cabin. One by one, the others stood and readied themselves for their next adventure.

"Valgaav's driving us to the crypt," Xel told everyone, avoiding Lina's contentious stare. Lina was silently thankful not to have to carry her heavy backpack of clothes and equipment, but she still confronted Valgaav about the driving privileges. Driving the van was her exclusive job. "Those of you are remaining here, can pack what's left and do what you wish to pass the time."

"We'll have our guns at the ready, Mr. Xelloss," Amelia said in her perkiest tone. Everyone could use a mood lift, she thought. "In case we get over-eager bandits sniffing around."

"Yes, and that, too." Xel made no attempt to correct her version of the possible 'bad guys' they might encounter in the cabin. His attention was on Lina, who was edging closer to his cousin and whispering something. He guessed the topic concerned who was to do the driving, as Lina trailed Valgaav out the door. A hint of smile teased at the corner of his mouth; Lina would get no where changing his cousin's mind.

Amelia continued to gaily point out how prepared they were. "...And if anyone gets a scrape or bruise, Sylphiel can patch them up."

Valgaav straightened his back and glared down from his full height at the petite redhead; he would not give in to her demands. "I'm driving there for two reasons. One, I'm driving back and I want to be familiar with the road. And two, I know where the 'on' switch for the roof spotlight is and am tall enough to turn it on. Now, get in and shut up. Hey, what's that you've got with you?"

Filia, Gourry, Zelgadiss, and Sylphiel climbed into the van silently avoiding the conflict. Xel met Valgaav's golden eyes with a supportive nod, and then hopped up into the front passenger seat.

"Nothing!" she snapped and squeezed past him and into the back of the van, carefully hiding a long stick.

Valgaav slammed the van door behind her, climbed up on the wheel well and stretched his arm along the van roof to the overhead light. With a flip of the switch, the roadway for about fifteen feet in front of them was awash in light. Still, even with the help of some illumination the road's condition was deplorable. "Damn, I don't want to break an axle," Valgaav grumbled to Xel in the seat beside him. "Get us stranded out here..."

"You're doing fine. There it is. Stop, but leave on the headlights until we can get past the gate and get our lanterns out." Xel put his hand on his cousin's arm before the van came to a halt. "If something happens to me," their eyes met and exchanged silent understanding, "then as a last resort, call Sherra on the walkie-talkie to make an off-island call."

"Cell phones blocked?"

"Yes, except that Sherra has access to lines out; they are required for flight plans."

"Okay, but I hope it doesn't come to that." Val saw the shrine entrance ahead, slowed the van, and parked. "All out!"

Xelloss stood clear with Lina and Zelgadiss, while Valgaav and Gourry hammered at the padlock with a rock. It had worked on the weathered gate opening into the shrine's garden, but this door was intended to keep the most aspiring of grave diggers out of the crypt itself.

"Too bad we couldn't find a crowbar," Gourry said.

"Well, no one listened to me when I said I had the solution," Lina grumbled. "But just to show there's no hard feelings, here." She brandished the fireplace poker, which she had taken from the cabin at the last minute, like a lance. "This oughta do."

"It sure should, if it's strong enough metal." Gourry tested the feel of the heavy rod, then forced it between the chain links, twisted, and snapped the links.

Their celebration was cut short, though when the wrought iron gate wouldn't budge. "Rusted shut," Valgaav determined. "Ready? On the count of three–"

He and Gourry shouldered the gate with such force that the hinges tore out the rock which had been cemented into the wall. The two men tumbled to the hard dirt floor moments before the entire iron gate twisted, taking down part of the supporting wall, tipped over, and fell amid a cloud of dust and falling rubble. Xel stepped around them, fanning the air, then knelt to see if they were okay. "Help me free them, Zelgadiss!"

Valgaav and Gourry needed no assistance to get to their feet after Zelgadiss and Xel heaved off the massive gate and extracted them from the rock. Lina moved a rock, but leaning over was painful, so she stopped. "I hope that's not a portent of things to come," Lina said, knowing it was. The headache she had noticed at dinner was now worse and accompanied by dull abdominal cramps. If nothing else, she would soon have her period to contend with, and she hadn't brought along any pads.

Moments later, the co-conspirators were outside the crypt, setting out their gear in preparation to go in. "Okay, Valgaav," Xel said in a serious tone. "Here's where you stop."

Valgaav nodded his acquiescence. He had wanted to accompany them all in the search of the tombs-- it was a particular lifelong interest of his-- but had agreed to stand guard at the entrance positioned to run back to the cabin, should the girls be in need, or to aid the excavators. He had argued for Gourry to stand guard duty, but Xel insisted that he would be better suited to guarding Lina, if a life or death situation arise. That was when Valgaav understood just how deep Xel's relationship had become with Lina. He had to be sincerely in love to put her above and beyond all else. "Yeah, I'll check the walkie-talkie communications."

In the weeks before, Xel had searched his mother's store of records, gleaning fragments of information on the layout and the contents of the underground burial place. He had shared some of that information earlier, but now he surrendered the rest. "Thanks, Val. Okay, guys. We ought to expect most of the vaults to be half full and partly walled or capped off."

Still standing outside with the ruined gate at his back, Xel pointed a flashlight into the interior of the crypt, illuminating rough-hewn stone steps leading straight down to a low-ceilinged entry. Three catacombs branched off into yawning black holes. "Down those paths we should find a varying number of enclosed vaults."

"Not too bad," Lina said. Cold air rose from the opening. "Good thing we have on these coveralls. I forgot how cold old caves can get. Ah... just how cold does it get down there?"

"Above freezing, around forty degrees," Xel said as he shrugged his shoulders. "The middle path leads under the shrine itself and, apparently, it goes further into the hill back there. It's the larger space, from what I could tell. Then there are two outer passageways ending in the vaults with an external wall. One of these passages leads deeper underground and the other ends abruptly with most of the burials in some upper compartment. It was difficult to understand the layout; I wasn't able to get an actual map or blueprint.

"Anyway, alternating vaults have an air vent leading up into the garden of the shrine. Some vaults have no external wall, as I said, like those under the shrine. Oddly, a small number of vaults, those in that upper passageway, appear to be linked to the shrine's heating flues. I assume as a cheap substitute for putting in real air vents."

Gourry was the only one not used to suiting up in coveralls and was having a difficulty getting suited up. He noticed that everyone else was ready and waiting for him, both Zelgadiss and Lina looking aggravated. Gourry assumed they were mad at his incompetence, which made him feel out of place with them, so he hastened his efforts to catch up. Unfortunately, he only made matters worse as he hooked his shoe in the elastic ankle cuff, nearly falling over, caught the zipper on a shirt tail.

His flailing arms nearly knocked Zelgadiss out. It was comical, and ordinarily everyone would have gotten a good laugh from his antics, especially Zelgadiss, but his nerves in particular were frayed by his surroundings and his mission. "Hey! Watch it!" Zelgadiss retorted irritably.

"Sorry," Gourry said, embarrassed and defensive. "I never wore one of these things before-- not to work everyday."

_Like I do_, Zelgadiss filled in inaudibly. He immediately returned a quiet, "Sorry." He hadn't meant to snap at his friend. The tension eased from both their strained faces, and they exchanged apologetic glances.

While Gourry was untangling his hair from his zipper, Xel ran down the checklist, calling out directions as he went. "Check that you're double-gloved and that you have a spare pair of gloves. Test your flashlights, and don't forget to bring a spare battery pack and your collection containers. As soon as we breach a seal, breathe only through your air filters, and turn on your walkie-talkies."

Zelgadiss agreed to take the one outer path down into the bowels of the crypt. Crawling through the dry, dusty opening would not bother him, he knew. Zelgadiss was reminded of the day he had lost his locker keys out in the parking lot of the high school. Someone had jostled his elbow, causing his keys to fly out of his hand and onto the rough asphalt, then a foot had kicked them unintentionally past the grating cover that led to an opening beneath the gymnasium. "Damn it all," he had grumbled as he sloughed off his backpack. "Here, Gourry, hold this for me. I got to go in there to get my keys."

Gourry had had his doubts. "Pretty tight spot, Zel."

But it had been Gourry who had helped him remove the grate and had watched him crawl head first into the darkness. Scrabbling on his belly in the dark, Zelgadiss had choked on the powdery dust, scraped his palms on sharp rocks, and slit his pants from mid-thigh to his knee on a piece of glass, but he had persisted until he had recovered his keys. Lina had called him "bull-headed," but Gourry had assured her that Zel "just needed the keys a lot." Zelgadiss had considered himself to be "resolute." Yeah, and "brave."

He was daring and courageous now, too, in the pursuit of his mother's grave. He tested his half-gloves, fingertips removed, waved to the others, and flattened onto his belly. Crawling down deeper into the catacomb, he was relieved that the had not encountered any sharp impediments to his progress, but was sure he would if there were any to be found, then remembered he was wearing a headlamp. "Thanks, Valgaav," he muttered into his face mask. Valgaav had picked up a few of the headlamps designed for spelunking at the sporting goods store, and Zelgadiss could now admire his forethought. The light bounced off rock walls not over two feet high, then disappeared into a tunnel that steeply sloped downward.

While Zelgadiss nudged past the rock entry to the lower level, Lina shouted a few encouraging words to his feet, and Xel and Gourry considered the approach up into upper crypt. The opening was no more than three feet high.

"I'd give it a go, but I don't think I'd fit."

Xel chuckled. "No, no... I don't think you'd be able to get your shoulders past the opening."

"Makes you wonder how they got coffins in. Well, I suppose I could drive in some of those pitons Val sent with us. Ya know, into the rock here...and here, so you can climb up." Gourry scratched his head again.

"I'm having difficulty imagining me doing that," Xel admitted.

"Quit looking like a monkey doing math!" Lina shoved past them both. "I'm the only one that can make it through that ferret hole. Gourry, you know the way. Just catapult me up there." She twisted her hair into a rope then a bun and pulled a knit cap over top. "Ready."

As Lina slipped into the hole, Zelgadiss was discovering that the downward slant of his tunnel had leveled off quickly. Zelgadiss was slender enough to fit into the narrow slot and nimble enough to make the 90 degree angle turn, which brought him face to face with a line of wooden caskets. His hand grazed the corner of one, splintering the decaying wood. "Gah!"

The debris of decomposed coffin lining and other things he probably didn't want to think about poured over one arm. "Shit," he snarled in disgust.

With all his strength, he heaved himself past the restricted passage and into the chamber with only enough head room for him to stand stooped over. "These look too old and jumbled together to belong to Zelas' sister. You'd think she'd be in something regal. Of course, you'd think a lot of this should be different if whatever was going on wasn't illegal."

His walkie-talkie crackled to life, and he heard a voice. "Is that you talking to yourself, Zelgadiss?"

"Yeah," he muttered into his, as he peeled back his breathing mask. "This is revolting."

"Some people think what you do for a living is disgusting, too," Xel replied with amusement. "Anyway, I called you to say that I'm moving on to the last room. Lina's in the upper chamber and Gourry's staying, waiting for you guys. If neither of you finds anything then we'll move in my direction. Now, put your mask back on. Over."

"All right," Zelgadiss replied. "Like I need to be reminded of that... Over."

1With headroom so limited, Zelgadiss had to be far closer to decomposed bodies than he liked. He scrabbled about the coffins' detritus, looking for identification of any sort. The outer wooden coffins, cracking from desiccation, mostly revealed nothing, but occasionally he could locate inscribed breast- and end-plates. These 'plated' coffins grew in number as he moved further from the entrance. When he reached the end and still had found nothing of his mother's burial, he burst out in a fury of disappointment, "This is stupid!"

Zelgadiss was not dealing with his discouragement well, knew it, and that further angered him into kicking at the last burial pile. Even from his awkward angle, hunched over, his strike was forceful, sending out a shower of pulverized debris, and now his boot was lodged inside a coffin. "Damn it anyhow!"

With a hard wrench to one side, the aged wood splintered, giving way, and his foot freed suddenly. Too suddenly, because he was unable to recover his balance before his weight shifted onto his unsupported elbows, and down he fell. "Gah!' he yelped, sliding backwards and down into a darkened side chute. "Oof!" He was brought up shortly when his head and shoulders collided with a stout board.

Lina, meanwhile, was close to regretting her rash decision to search the upper crypt. She had found finger holds to cling to the rock ledge had been able to shimmy over the lip and past the narrow aperture of the gap.

Not surprisingly, conditions were dramatically worse in the vault linked to the heating ducts– Lina's vault. Water had leaked through the duct work and the warmth had encouraged bacteria and decomposition. She could hear water dripping in several places. "And here I thought it would be drier if I went up," she grumbled to herself. "Hope Zel's not drowning."

As she crawled down the passage, her hands slipped out from under her. Lina scrabbled desperately for support, but lost her balance and landed chest-first onto the hard, greasy floor of the tunnel. "Ugh!" She hated slimy, wet things, and she was fast becoming just that.

Lina wiped the muck off her mouth and onto her sleeve. "Disgusting!" She had to remind herself why she was there, but still her hands were trembling. Lina shivered at the revolting feelings. Her subconscious was indelibly imprinted with an intense, profound, and unreasonable fear of slimy creatures. "Although," she reminded herself with a shrug and half smile. "I have no problem with noodles, especially in dinner form. Well, enough of this sniveling stuff! I've got a job to do and the sooner I get on it, the sooner it'll be over." With her own form of self-encouragement, Lina rose up onto her hands and knees, and crawled with deliberation to inspect her first stack of coffins waiting ominously for her at the end of the passageway.

The crawl space opened into a low-ceiling cavern, similar to the one Zelgadiss had located far below. "Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. Just a pile of cold, creepy, crap," Lina muttered. "No names, hardly anything but rotting boards. Good thing I'm short. Nobody else could do this. Okay, that bunch is done. Bunch like bananas. What's next? Ah, more packed like pickles... Pickled and jammed in a box, then stacked in piles and stuffed...like olives." Lina's stomach growled in response to her food-related musings, then a cramp low in her intestines bent her double. "No, not _now,_ body! Speaking of slime! Gods, how I hate being female sometimes!"

"Lina? Howya doin'?"

Lina punched the on button to her walkie-talkie and barked into the mouthpiece. "Gourry? Don't bother me now. I'm shitty, and that's the best I can report. Over and out!" She slammed the instrument off. "Damn men, sticking their nose into my business, telling me how to do it. They're really only good for one thing." She chuckled at her subsequent, colorful, indecent thoughts, not that she believed what she'd said– men probably had numerous uses– but it helped occupy her mind.

Surrounded by the gruesome reminders of death-- the dank charnel smell and trails of dark shining goo pooling on the floor-- threatened to drive her into a panic. To avoid it, Lina let her imagination break free. Instead of coffins, there was a bed, candles, Xel stretching languidly across one end. He wore only a sultry expression. She felt another twinge in her gut. "Well, a period means I'm not pregnant, heh, heh, not that that could happen with all the care Xel takes."

Luckily, Zelgadiss had skidded only a few feet, but when he stopped moving he found himself wedged into a place in the shadows he never would have discovered, even after searching methodically. His hand moved to rub his sore head, when he brushed against a cool smooth surface. "Metal?" He quickly reached up and adjusted his headlight, which had been knocked awry in the accident, then turned to examine his find. His heart rate sped up. This was a fine brass plate engraved with elegant script. He rubbed it clean and stared in rapt disbelief. It read: Deep Sea Dolphinia. Aside from the nameplate, the box was in good condition, but was nondescript.

"H-hello? Xel? You there? I think I found it. Yeah, there's a nameplate that says: Deep Sea Dolphinia. Right. I'm going to open it and then try for the samples." He set the walkie-talkie to the side, then used a knife to pry open the lid. The rims parted slowly. He shouldered the weight, pushed, caught and held the edges as the seal gave way and lifted. Again, he put the knife to use, embedding the point into the coffin body, and bracing the top up. Pushing away the yellowed shroud, he revealed a smiling, white skull. Embalmed or not, it took very little time for decomposition to completely remove the skin and flesh of humanity. He squeezed his eyes shut to remove the disturbing image. "Don't think; do," he muttered aloud.

Without waiting a moment longer, he pried loose a few teeth and popped them out, carved off a finger and a toe, dumped the remains into a sterile pouch, and wrestled his blade free from the wood. Dust flew into his face as the lid slammed shut, and he was grateful for the mask. He stashed everything into his pack and crawled upwards into the main cavity.

His communication device sputtered before Xel's voice came through. "You okay, Zelgadiss?"

He had to stop to retrieve it, remove his mask, and think of what to say. "Yeah, just a minute. I'm in a really cramped space here and the mask is in the way. There. Okay, I collected everything and I'm on my way out."

"Sounds good. Was it...difficult?"

"In what way do you mean that? In a desecrating-my-mother's-grave kind of way or in a could-have-used-a-hand kind of way? No matter. I got the goods and I'll be out momentarily. Over and out." He clipped the communication device onto his belt loop, yanked the mask up over his nose, and continued creeping slowly back up the tunnel.

Lina fumbled with the next group of coffins, searching for identification or signs that any one of these could be Zelgadiss' mother's burial site. She continued to distract herself from the moldy contents, the black sticky ooze, and slimy, damp wood she was handling with more thoughts of Xel. She wondered what it would be like if she did happen to get pregnant. How would Xel feel about her carrying his child? "How would I?" she wondered out loud. "Would I want that someday?" Then it occurred to her that she hadn't spoken a civil word to Xel that night, and that their last interactions had left much to be desired. She was beginning to feel bad about how she'd treated him, when her walkie-talkie buzzed at her hip. She clicked it on. "Yeah? I'm busy."

"You can come back, Lina. Zelgadiss found her. It's over."

"Xel? You're not kidding me, are you?"

"Nope!"

"Cool. Okay, I'm on my way. Yahoo!"

Lina assumed Xel would be there when she dropped down from her crypt hole and into Gourry's welcoming arms. "Whoa! You sure are dirty!" he said with a flinch.

"Yeah, lucky me. I got the hell-hole. Hey, at least Zelly found what we came for, right?"

Lina shook herself free and pranced over to where Zelgadiss was sitting, looking over the stolen material with a marked lack of enthusiasm. "Hey, that's pretty great, huh? Congrats, bud. So, we can go now? Maybe make something of the rest of the weekend, right? Um, so where's Xel?"

Zelgadiss tipped his head to the side, indicating the long tunnel into the mountain. "He went that way. He said he was looking around and would be back shortly, as his battery ran out on his walkie-talkie. Have a seat. Oh, and keep that mask on. We've stirred up dust everywhere."

"Not me," Lina said. "I was making mud pies." She corrected the fit of her mask, then asked in a muffled voice, "Has anyone told Valgaav or the cabin-girls?"

"Xel called him. I looked outside and didn't see him on guard duty so I assume he went to get the _cabin-girls_ and bring them here so we can load up and leave," he said half-heartedly.

Gourry had had a lot of time to circle the room. It was more of a cavern carved out of the rock than a room. In his multiple circumventions of the subterranean space, he had come upon another passageway. He hadn't been certain if it was a real discovery or something he'd forgotten hearing about. Xel might have told them all about it, but he just couldn't recall being told of more than three passageways. Nobody had offered to go check it out, though, so it possibly he had made a real find after all. Yeah, maybe it was newer than Xel's maps. Gourry had thought he might take a look. Of course, that might have meant Lina would have been stuck up in that dark hole if he wasn't there to catch her, so he had 'stayed put' and waited. Zelgadiss might have needed a hand out, too. Gourry had looked up, down and over at his tunnel choices, considering what it was that he had to do. He had felt he was wasting his time, but if Lina might need him, or Zel, then time he would waste. He had figured he ought to bring it up, in case it was important, when Lina and Zelgadiss were back.

"Oh," Gourry remembered to tell them now. "There's this other passage over here."

Lina tore off her face mask to make sure she could be understood. "Huh? What passage? When did you find this?"

"While you were up there, I thought maybe Xel knew about it and I missed his talking about it."

"Idiot! Xel didn't say anything about one over there; that's behind the shrine, I think. Show me!"

Zelgadiss stepped in before Lina could pound on Gourry's back. "Calm down. The man didn't do anything wrong. You might want to put on your mask, though. We don't know what we'll find. Gourry, we should just take a look. We have what we came for, and I don't want to push my luck."

The passage was narrow with sharp turns, but not wet, steep, or littered with debris. "Looks used," Gourry observed, grumbling as he went, "by midgets." He was having trouble maneuvering in the tight space, and was last to step into the space beyond. He nearly ran down Lina and Zelgadiss, who were frozen stock still. "Whoa, would ya look at that?"

Lina was the first to recover. Instead of wooden coffins, hundreds of clear, plastic body bags were stacked horizontally, bounded by steel dividers to keep them in place. "They must be fifty deep...and as many rows over here. The bodies just keep going back further into the mountain. There could be thousands and thousands."

Zelgadiss moved cautiously to the nearest bag and fingered the end. "Toe tags just have a number."

"You suppose these are dead guys from the jail or the nuthouse?"

Lina shook her head. "No, too neat. Look at the bodies. They are mostly alike, or of a couple kinds."

"They look unfinished," Zelgadiss said, his lip curling in disgust. "It's where she buries her test subjects."

Lina shivered. "Gods, this place gives me the creeps. Let's get out of here."

* * *

Sylphiel, Filia, and Amelia, remained at the cabin, what Valgaav had called the "base station." They watched at the door as he drove the others into the chilling blackness. "I wish he was staying here and not leaving to guard that _direful_ tomb entrance," Sylphiel said.

"Direful?" Filia's right eyebrow twitched. "You've been watching too many horror flicks lately, Sylph."

"But it did look forbidding, didn't it?" Amelia said, patting Sylphiel's arm gently. Amelia and Filia both agreed that the cabin would feel a whole lot safer with him. "But we must be brave and do our part," Amelia reminded them.

"Of course, but there's no rule that says we shouldn't make ourselves comfortable. I'll make hot cocoa, "Sylphiel offered with her usual philanthropy.

Later, with a warm, steaming mug in her hands, Filia said, "I hope we don't actually have to use those guns."

"Me, neither. I'm going to be optimistic and say they'll find Mr. Zelgadiss' mother's grave, get what they need, and be back in no time so, then we can leave and never come back to this island again."

"Amelia, you are always the hopeful one," Sylphiel said looking kindly at her younger friend. "They can't get back soon enough for me."

"That's for sure," Filia agreed. "I brought a deck of cards. Anyone want to play?"

The three young women settled into some semblance of comfortable conversation and entertainment, always on edge and waiting for a call or the sound of the van. It was, however, another kind of sound that broke the silence of the night.

Valgaav paced the wall like a caged cheetah. His long legs stepped around the ruined gate; he padded into the dreary shrine garden and approached the crypt entry. He knew every shadow, rock, and the names of a few of the stars overhead. Nothing moved. He was on full alert for any deviation in the dead stillness. He ran his flashlight over the formless mounds. Light glinted off stagnate water and floating grey-green sludge pooled in a chiseled, marble fountain. Colorless tiles, gray pavers, blanched skeletons of dried up vegetation, everything washed out, dulled by the artificial illumination. He wished for something-- a dry leaf blowing across his path, a mouse scavenging, a moth attracted to his flashlight-- something living and breathing, or at least animated. Nothing stirred. Not even a breeze.

With a sigh, Valgaav turned and walked back along the path he'd just walked. "Hope they find what they're looking for before I start banging my head against the wall," he growled. His thoughts wandered to Amelia. Now _she_ was warm, breathing, and most assuredly alive. He wondered how she and the other young ladies were getting along, and pulled out the walkie-talkie to find out. "Hey, how are my girls doing?"

"Um...not bad," came Sylphiel's voice through the crackling distortion of the communication device. She tried to sound convincing, but her voice shook.

"What's that I hear in the background?" Valgaav held the earpiece firmly to his head and covered his other ear. It was a keen moaning, inhuman and undulating eerily, distinctively– "Wolves!"

"Yes, I think so. We heard them start up a few minutes ago. They've been getting closer. Amelia is at one window and Filia at the other– with rifles. I-I don't think they can break in. We'll be okay."

Valgaav held the walkie-talkie in his hand, which buzzed ineffectually. He suddenly felt very alone. And very uneasy. He was needed somewhere, and it was not here, in his lifeless–

"Valgaav! Valgaav! Come in!" The walkie-talkie crackled back to life, with Amelia's voice. Val's heart missed a beat. "They're at the door and scratching! One of the windows is cracked!"

"I'm coming," he barked, and switched back to the other signal immediately. "Xel! Damn you, what's wrong with your signal?" He punched at the device. "Zelgadiss! Wolves at the cabin. I'm going to help, then come back," he reported, then, before his friend or cousin could reply, he snapped off the walkie-talkie and stashed it into his pack.

Valgaav was hard-pressed to think about damaging the van as he barreled recklessly back to the cabin. In the light of the bright beams he could make out a pack of at least a dozen savage beasts clawing at the door and bounding over one another to get at the girls on the other side. The roar of the engine and the screeching of brakes caught their attention.

"Valgaav's here!" Amelia announced with relief.

He honked the horn repeatedly and drove into the midst of the pack, nudging them back and away. He hadn't the heart to run them over– not yet. He would, if he had no choice, but that wouldn't necessarily do anything but maim some innocent animals and ruin the van. The smaller ones took off howling in disappointment and fear of the giant beast pushing them off their prey. Valgaav pulled out his handgun and shot twice over the heads of a tightly knit group that was springing boldly at a window. Those dispersed into the darkness, wailing their despair as well. There remained two: the alpha male and female.

"I'd hate to breakup a mated pair, so git!" he bellowed in warning.

The female laid back her ears and snarled in defiance, the male backing her up with ominous growls. They had no intentions of giving up so easily; they were too well disciplined. They stood their ground, eyes trained on Valgaav's every movement inside the van, not fooled, or at least undaunted, by the mechanical beast without. "Damn you for making this hard," he growled back, slipping the gun into his pants and reaching for a different weapon.

Two pairs of ears twitched as the van door opened and out stepped the man, fire-poker in hand. "Go!" he roared, jumping forward hoping to startle the wolves into action. He did, but it wasn't what he had counted on.

The female launched herself at his throat while the male circled around to his back. "Stupid–!" The man whorled his iron rod around, smashing it into the attacking wolf's head. The animal howled in agony, rolling out of the way, but quickly regained her feet, blood dripping from her ear. Valgaav's shoulders and arms ached with the effort. He had no time to keep an eye on her; he heard the scuffling of paws behind him as the male pushed off from the ground.

Valgaav twisted to meet the oncoming wolf, having the forethought to hold the poker point-forward as the massive weight pounded into him. Again, the pain shot through his upper body as the poker was nearly wrenched from his grip. He scarcely slipped to the side, avoiding the butt-end of the iron rod as he was flattened onto the hard earth. Pinned above him was the wolf, writhing in agony around the poker which pierced through its rib cage and out its back. With super-human strength, given him by the rush of adrenaline, Valgaav shoved the hundred-plus-pound animal off his chest and dragged himself up to a shaky stance.

"What did I do to my shoulder now?" he wondered with a grimace.

"Watch out!"

He heard the cry of alarm and swept back his long, sweat-soaked bangs from his eyes, but only in time to see a shadow flicker. Still, he spun away as fast as lightening, swearing loudly for his failure to attend to the injured female. This time, his left arm exploded in pain as sharp claws ripped his jacket, tearing through the cloth like wet tissue and hooking into his flesh. A loud blast shot through the cacophony of noise.

Amelia let the smoking rifle slip from her hands as she ran to her fallen boyfriend. "Valgaav! You're hurt!"

He was, but he was alive, too, and more shocked by her proactive reaction with the gun than by the injury. Filia and Sylphiel were out the door, and, together, the girls hauled him into the cabin, setting to work washing and tending his wounds.

A few minutes later, he gulped down a few pain killers and gingerly tested his arm. He hissed with pain.

"You have to keep it still!" Sylphiel insisted. "You'll get it to bleeding again and you've already lost too much blood. Here, I'll wrap it to your chest so you can't use it."

He'd never heard her sound so sure of herself, or so, well, bossy. "Your shoulder is not right. I think it's out of joint so this will keep that fixed in place until we can get you to a hospital."

"Thanks," he muttered through his gritted teeth, thankful for this sweet girl's sudden take-charge attitude under stress. She was a great nurse, he realized, and would probably be a great doctor if she chose to be. Unfortunately, he did not have the time to follow procedure. "That will have to wait. I have to get back to the others. Amelia, get that scarf and tie it around my head."

"The black one? Like this?"

"Yeah, time to get a hair trim. Can't see through the bangs," he said in a gentle voice as his young girlfriend tended to his demands. She wasn't hysterical and worthless, which he expected most girls to become. Filia and Sylphiel were stalwart companions as well, but not as important to him as Amelia.

Amelia wiped off the trickle of sweat running down his temple, then leaned closer and kissed him softly. "I'm so glad you're all right." She checked the knot and arranged the rest of his hair. "You look like a ninja fighter."

"Yeah, you look fine. Listen, you go guard the others if you feel you still have to, but we aren't staying here any longer!" Filia announced. "I'm not going to be a sitting duck dinner for another pack of wolves."

"She's right," Amelia agreed. "I'm sorry if it angers Xel, but we can't stay in this place. While we were waiting, we did some packing. It will only take us a minute to finish and load everything into the van. We might as well all wait at that shrine as here. At least we'll be together, if not safer."

Valgaav thought of the quiescent fountain at the shrine, the eerie stillness broken by only his footfalls. "Probably right. Okay, let's go then."

He switched on the overhead beams, started the engine, threw it into gear, and tore off down the road to the shrine. He steered with his right hand, while his left remained bent at the elbow and tightly bound to his chest. A weak crackling noise followed by a buzz came from under his jacket. "Is that your walkie-talkie?" Amelia asked.

Without a free hand, he couldn't answer it. "Forget it. I'm driving as fast as I can. We'll be there in a minute, then I'll just go see them. There, it shut off on its own. Probably just checking back. Maybe they found the burial."

* * *

Gourry stopped in his tracks. "You hear that?"

Next thing they knew, Rezo, looking better than he had any right to, was floating into the room beneath a voluminous cape. He had come from out of nowhere, Zelgadiss thought, and he was the most alarmed. "Grandfather!"

Lina laughed. "What are you doing here in a getup like that? It's ridiculous! Though, that staff of yours is pretty damn cool. Can I see it?"

Rezo moved the staff further from her outstretched arm and shook his head. The man smiled a patient smile, as if he had to merely endure the children one more time. It was Rezo, but his expression was too complacent and his eyes remained closed. "The question is: What are you doing here?" His head turned toward Zelgadiss, effectively freezing him to the floor. "You shouldn't have brought these others. It's time to go. This way." He gestured with the long staff, a walking stick topped with rings and beads that jangled together in dissonantly, pointing toward the gaping, dark passageway.

"Just you hold on there, mister!" Lina shouted. "Where's Xel?"

The man returned a blank expression. "Xel–?"

"Xel-loss? His mother runs this place, you know, Zel-aass Metallium? We all came here at her invitation, for a party, if you have to know, not that it's any business of yours. So, if you don't like us being here, take it up with her. Now, you have to have seen Xel, or passed him in that other tunnel. Go back and get him. We'll settle this right now."

"I have come for Zelgadiss."

"Well, that's your problem, you mindless drone! He's a grown man now and you can't tell him what to do! Now go get Xel!"

She didn't know how close to the truth she was with her name calling. Rezo wheeled around, swinging his staff. "He is mine!"

"Wrong!" Gourry shouted, blocking the staff with his rifle. "You heard Lina. Go get Xel and talk to him."

Lina grabbed at Zel's shirt. "Get out of here and get Valgaav!"

Zelgadiss, previously frozen in place like a fish filet, reanimated in Lina's presence, dashed down the tunnel, out into the cavern, up the stairs and out into the open of the shrine garden. He had not run into Xel or Valgaav, as he had expected. He whipped the walkie-talkie from his hip and yelled, "Valgaav! Get yer ass back here!" But Valgaav wasn't answering. "Damn you anyway!" Zelgadiss shouted. "Answer!"

A shot rang out, the echo bouncing off the stone walls. "Gah!" Zelgadiss gasped, as his walkie-talkie exploded into fragments. Someone was shooting at him! He turned and flew back into the crypt, out of sight.

Zelgadiss heard shouting, scuffling, and the clang of metal on stone. His friends were in trouble. He ripped off his pack and dug into the center compartment for the hand guns. His trusty blade was in its scabbard at his hip. What happened to Xel? He hoped the man wasn't hurt and lying bleeding someplace. But what if this was his plan all along? Lure them into trap, disappear, then let his mother's people capture him? No, that's crazy thinking! He wouldn't do that, not Xel. But then, what was with his grandfather showing up? And why was looking so... energetic? Yes, that was the word! His questions would go unanswered for the moment, though. He removed the safety of one of the guns, stuck the other in his pocket, and stepped cautiously down the rock staircase.

Gourry parried skillfully with the equally tall and talented man. Lina could see that one would slip up eventually, and it could just as easily be Gourry as the old man, who didn't look old at all. Her attention was diverted by the sound of footfalls. For a second, her spirits lifted, Valgaav and Zelgadiss were on their way, but the noise was coming from the wrong direction. The room had another entry somewhere! Could it be Xel? NO! Men in strange hooded robes were flooding the room. "Gourry!" she screamed in alarm.

Lina pulled him back into the narrow passage, screeching, "Get out! Run!"

He ran, she pushed, and they stumbled into the cavern entry, where Lina pointed to the slimy, high passage, and shouted out orders once more. "Get me up there again!"

He thought she meant to hide, and he didn't blame her. "Yeah." Without questioning her, he once more sent her flying up to the lip of the upper passageway. From there he watched her disappear, satisfied that she, at least, might be safe.

"OH!" Amelia cried out from the passenger seat as they arrived at the shrine. Shadowy forms surged around the tomb entry. "Who are those people!"

Valgaav ran the van off the road, jumped out, and slammed off the lights. "This is bad." He pushed Amelia back into the front seat. "Stay here and guard the van and Sylphiel!"

"But...?" The question died on her lips under his determined gaze.

"I'm moving in. I need you to fire off a few shots to distract them." His eyes pleaded with Amelia's for understanding and compliance.

She acquiesced with a curt nod. "Right!"

Filia pushed forward. "I can do something. I _demand_ to help. I can aim, target shoot."

He stared her down, then decided to take his chances that she wouldn't shoot him in the back. "Okay. Come with me. You'll watch my back until we get to the wall there, see it? Then stay behind that and cover me until I go in. Then, I want you to fall back to the van and guard it with Amelia, understand? No heroics!"

"Fine," Filia agreed and climbed into the back of the van to get her shotgun.

Meanwhile, Lina gritted her teeth and closed her mind to her surroundings. She had to ignore the smell of decay, even through her mask; her ghoulish work exposing more of the sticky tar of what she knew was decomposing bodies as she ripped apart the burial cases and collected skulls was more than any weaker soul could take. "This is not the rot inside a corpse," she muttered to herself.

From somewhere outside her morbid world the beat of gunfire played in the background, reminding her how little time she had to waste. She worked frantically, piling up dozens of white, grinning skulls, then rolling them all down the passage to the opening. She knew she'd be no match in the fighting with just her short knife, and she desperately hoped that this risky, if not utterly disgusting, strategy would work.

Where was Xel? It wasn't possible that he would let this happen to his friends, to her, not after all they had shared. She hoped he was okay. She regretted not taking the time before entering the crypt to say something nice to him. She hated to think how childish he must think she was. As much as she liked to think she could control him, she knew he was an independent man, one that moved smoothly in the adult world and had so much to teach her. Secretly, she loved when he would flatten her on the bed, overwhelming her senses, possessing her. Another volley of gunfire shook her out of her dreamworld. "Here I am thinking of sex while I work like a girl possessed!" Lina muttered aloud. Possessed. Her mind cleared to crystal acuity. Why would Zelgadiss' grandfather attack them this way? Because Rezo is possessed! "Right!" she shouted. She was excited by this inspired logic. Hadn't Sherra told them about that rumor? Is that a copy-Rezo? "I gotta tell Gourry!"

She scrambled to the lip of the lofty opening and peered out. Gourry was tiring. He sported a bruise to his cheekbone where Rezo's staff had hit his face. How many more injuries he had sustained, Lina couldn't know. Her blood boiled. Opening the jaws of one of the skulls, Lina jammed it full of mud and rocks from the passage. "Gods, this had better work!" She hazarded one more look out the hole, taking a moment to aim, then yelled to Gourry, "It's not Rezo. That's his clone. It isn't a real man!" She paused long enough to see the enlightenment shine in her friend's eyes, then threw the bony projectile down atop of Rezo's head as hard as possible. "Banzai!"

Knowing that he didn't need to hold back, Gourry lashed out one more time as the heavy projectile slammed his opponent on the head. His rifle butt connected with the man's gut, sending the Rezo clone crashing into the wall behind him with such force that the wall gave way, enveloping the creature in a fall of rock.

Gourry looked up in time to catch Lina launch another bone-bomb at cloaked figure running his way. "Bombs away!" she cried out.

He had time to signal Lina with a 'thumbs up' before having to turn and confront the next attacker. He looked up when Lina shouted "Catch!" He caught the empty skull, grimacing as he ran his fingers along its smooth surface. A wild thought occurred to him out of the blue: the eye sockets were like bowling ball finger holes. With a short windup, he fired off the skull, sending it skittering it to the ground, where it shot off spinning like mad, knocking men over like wooden pins.

Zelgadiss was working his way from the stairs toward Gourry, shooting masked men until his ammunition ran out. Then he drew out his knife and slit the throat of the first man to block his way. He had not thought he was a bloodthirsty man, but a summer of pain and autopsies had deadened his sensitivity toward gore. His attackers had not actually hurt him, as if they were not certain if he were important or not, but Zelgadiss wasn't thinking. He was reacting like a berserker, hitting, cutting, destroying anything or anyone in his path.

One man came up behind him and ripped off his face mask. The man took one look at Zelgadiss' blistered face, marred by the chemical accident only three months in the past, and screamed. Zelgadiss stabbed him through the heart, silencing him forever. He moved another step forward and spotted Gourry's golden hair rising above the moving mass, his muscular arms striking out, cutting down the opposition in his path, a mighty warrior from times long past.

There was Rezo: limp, eyes closed, and immobilized against the wall, taken out. Zelgadiss felt oddly unsatisfied and empty. Something dropped from a point above his line of sight, and a hooded attacker crumpled to the ground. Zelgadiss traced the trajectory and found Lina, grinning like a frenzied demon, thrusting another grisly missile out the passage gap, and yelling: "Bomb Blast!"

Zelgadiss felt a rush of relief, knowing that he wasn't the only one caught up in the bloodlust of the martial melee. He felt success was at hand, the pride of accomplishment warming his chilled and hardened heart for an instant– and then more ageless minions appeared at the main entry, letting out a roar of excitement. His hopes fell. There was no escape. They were doomed. But where was Xel? Valgaav? Wait, Valgaav had called him about something. He was going back to the cabin for something. What had he called about? Zelgadiss raked his memories for when he had last heard from Valgaav. He had been too busy to care at the time. Dancing with wolves? Wolves! Anguish swept over his mind as he considered the terrible situation in which he'd left Sylphiel-- protecting their worthless stuff from... wolves. "Wolves," he groaned aloud. Possibly_ they_ could get away. He hoped they would, and felt better thinking that at least his other friends were better off than he was...

**End, Graveyard Shift 25**


	26. The Finale

**2005**

**GRAVEYARD SHIFT**

**CHAPTER 26 -The Finale-**

"That also made Rezo both Zel's grandfather and great grandfather,

which had to be kept a secret because of the implications." -- Xel

* * *

Xel was sweating. He rarely sweated, because he handled stress extremely well and avoided exertion that wasn't a pleasant occupation of his time. Love-making, for instance, was acceptable. Perspiration beaded down his back as he was examined by his mother's hard, fixed stare. He couldn't help but droop and would soon be as comfortable as on a frying pan.

"You look like a bundle of uselessness," she said. It was something she privately thought about him most of the time, but voiced it aloud now in anger.

"Oh, well, I shall have to choose someone else to write my obituary, then, if that's the best you have to say about me," he replied in an attempt at humor.

"I shouldn't think you were concerned with obituaries– you are so young yet." She picked at his coveralls. "Is this the new fashion for morgue parties? If it is, why haven't I heard about it?"

"So, it's I who am on trial. I understand. Okay, then, these are good for caving."

"Caving? When did caving become a pastime of yours? And this isn't a cave, dear; it's our family burial ground."

"It isn't a particular interest of mine. Valgaav enjoys it, and if you draw the wrong deductions from that then that's your fault, not mine."

Zelas raised her blonde, thinly tweezed eyebrows in surprise at his tone before drawing them into a frown. "Does he? He's the scholar and sports enthusiast, I understand." Her face distorted into a supercilious smile. "You should tell him he wears too much make-up. It's not becoming on a young man, although he can carry off the facial stripes fairly well. Better than you. You're far too soft for make-up. You want to look vulnerable, but not prettier than the girls."

"I'll remember that," he said, then promptly forgot it since he hadn't been paying attention. His mind was elsewhere, concerned for the welfare of his friends and Lina especially. Xel had planned to be gone only a minute to investigate the last passage. Zelgadiss had secured his prize, so it was only a matter of collecting the rest of the group and leaving. Why hadn't he just waited with the others? They would have been on their way home by now! It had been a gamble. Just check out that last passageway and see if he could find the door connecting the crypt to an underground tunnel to the laboratory. It was just for curiosity's sake, but wasn't that what killed the cat? How many lives would have to be sacrificed to satisfy his overactive inquisitiveness? They didn't have nine lives to lose, and they weren't cats, or sacrificial lambs, or laboratory rats.

He had, however, determined that the passageway led to the lab and, unfortunately, his mother. Now she drilled him for information, and his brilliant wit couldn't dull its bite as it cut away at his deceptions. What he had cost his friends by pursuing this last path, he wondered? How long had he and his mother been at it? It seemed like hours...

Zelas continued to talk. "I'm glad you sought me out here, although how you knew where to find me I don't know. In any case, a little praise for delivering Zelgadiss is due you."

"Ah, thanks." Xel swallowed back the words he wanted to say.

"But I'm more than a little concerned that you chose to bring your little friends here, to this, our family shrine. You told me you were going to the beach."

"Change of plans. Morbid pursuits come with the job, I guess." He was grasping at straws and not confident he could diffuse the situation with witty repartee.

"Can we move on to business then?" She wasn't asking, but telling him. Unfortunately, he chose to reply with heavy, and undisguised, sarcasm.

"Apparently not."

Her hand came out of nowhere, and the slap to his face stunned him. He nearly lost consciousness. "Don't toy with me like one of your idiotic friends, and do not lie to me. Why are you here? Why did you bring the boy to this particular place?"

He could feel the imprint of his mother's hand on his cheek, stinging, the blood rising to the surface. It worked to concentrate his mental faculties on the problem at hand. He looked at his mother directly, eyes watering, and asked, "Just to satisfy my curiosity, why cover up the identity of Zelgadiss' real mother?"

"Why? Because it is no business of anyone's, and the information can disturb lives best left at rest."

"It is Zelgadiss' business, and I'm making it mine. You're not his mother, are you?" The idea just came to him and the possibility was intriguing.

"Absolutely not! Don't be ridiculous."

"So, who is it a favor to, this secret? Dad? Gaav? Rezo? Uncle Grauscherra? I can't believe it's important to any of them, except, perhaps Rezo. He seems insecure enough and Zel's parents distant enough." He jammed his hands in his pockets, hoping to find a tool or weapon.

Zelas turned the alternatives over in her mind. "I suppose I can tell you, before you hand him over to me."

It was that easy. It happened so fast, Xel nearly let the words pass by without comment as he located the communication device and a loose battery. No wonder it had stopped working; one of the batteries had fallen out. He worked the back cover off and moved around in order to hide his activity. "Yes, I'd like to know."

"It's complicated but not a long story. It began with your grandmother, Loni."

His fumbling knocked the second battery loose, causing him to nearly cry out in anger. "Ugh...I don't recall ever meeting her, did I?"

"Possibly as a child. She lived for a very long time, keeping her youthful appearance right into her ripe old age. That was when she learned about these special genes. They are the secret to long life."

He nodded, understanding, and pushed one battery back in place; at least, he hoped it wasn't in backwards. The number of possible combinations...he didn't have time to try them all. One down, seven more combinations to go...

"It was too late for her; the science was too new to do her any good. Anyway, as you know, she and her husband Shabranigdo produced the two sons, Grauscherra and Gaav, and a daughter, me, the only one who retained some, but not a complete copy, of the 'youth' gene."

"Right." He stuffed the second battery in and pressed the open-the-line button. No signal. "Grrr..." he growled at his own bad luck.

"I agree. It would have saved so much time and trouble had I received the complete gene, but that's not how it happened. You see, what you don't know, and has not been told to anyone but myself and now you, was that Loni also had a fling with Rezo."

"Noooo," Xelloss gritted his teeth, turning the sweat-slicked battery around and pushed it into the slot. The springs held and he pressed the button to open the line. For joy, it worked!

"Ha! My feelings exactly. So, when I discovered the truth I knew it must remain a secret—one to be taken to the grave. What a swinger the old guy was, you're right. Rezo was Shabranigdo's half-brother, and at the time was some traveling itinerant priest, and, more importantly, also had the longevity gene. She delivered another daughter, which her husband believed was his own."

"Dolphinia," Xel said in a gasp, shocked. He was sending a signal to someone, he didn't know who, or care. He spoke up a little louder hoping one of his friends was listening in. "And here I thought Dolphinia was my favorite aunt, and your sister, and it turns out that she's Rezo's daughter!"

"First an adulterer then, well, another terrible thing. When later-- oh yeah, it gets worse-- Dolphinia seduced Zelgadiss' father in the manner her mother set forth as an example, and she produced your friend."

"Ah, that made Loni both Zel's grandmother and Zel's great grandmother. How nasty a business _that_ made for the family." He rolled his eyes to show how unimpressed he was with the revelation.

Zelas took him at his word. "Yes. Dolphinia was locked up and sent away and a different Dauphin woman married the stupid man."

"That also made Rezo both Zel's grandfather and great grandfather, which had to be kept a secret, because of the implications." Xel pretended to ponder the situation while listening carefully for signs that his friends were on their way to help him.

"Before Dolphinia died of grief, she entrusted the truth to me. What this all comes down to is that Zelgadiss is the only one left with the whole gene. Rezo and I are incomplete."

"As am I," Xel said, "even if Gaav has none of the gene."

"My brother received a very small portion, bound to some other gene which blocked most of its usefulness. Val is of no use to our program, being adopted, and the gene becomes too diluted as one looks to his brothers. Zelgadiss is, however, the perfect candidate. And now that you understand the details, I'm sure you can see why I've been anxious for him to be delivered here." She opened a small shoulder bag and withdrew a shiny, thin box. "You might want a look at this, but I'll want it back."

**(o)**

* * *

Filia laid down a thick volley of shots, enabling Valgaav to make his run all the way to the shrine. As soon as she saw his head disappear past the ruined gate, she called back to Amelia. "Move on out!"

Amelia turned back to the van, shouting, "Ready, Miss Sylphiel?"

Sylphiel finished filling her knapsack with a variety of hypodermic needles filled with relaxant, as well as tapes, and scalpels, and other first-aid supplies, snapped it shut, and grabbed the fireplace shovel she had brought from the cabin. She couldn't shoot a gun, but she was not helpless. "Ready!"

They knew Valgaav hadn't wanted this. They knew he wanted them to remain behind in comparable safety, but who was he to tell them what to do? "He's inside. I don't see anyone," Filia told them as she raced past the fountain. "I can hear shouting, fighting."

Amelia brushed past her. "We have to expect more to come in behind us."

"I'll be last," Sylphiel said. "I'll watch your backs. Don't worry, if anyone comes I'll scream bloody murder. They won't sneak up on you."

The three girls started down the dark stairs and immediately ran into Valgaav. "Amelia! What are you...Filia? No, go back." He wasn't able to finish as a hooded man jumped onto his back. "Argh!" he groaned as pain from his shoulder injuries overwhelmed his senses, making him temporarily helpless.

Filia raised her rifle and slammed it into the hooded end of the man. "Oof!" she grunted. That's one!"

Valgaav shook off the dead weight and looked Filia in the eye. She was determined to stay; he was powerless to stop the girls from helping, and he knew it. "Thanks. Let's go for broke." The two plowed into the fray, Amelia and Sylphiel behind them. The entry chamber was dimly lit by lanterns hanging from hooks and scattered around the chamber. From the height above their heads, Valgaav assumed Gourry was responsible for their placement. "I see Gourry!" Valgaav yelled, then quickly shouted over his shoulder to Sylphiel, "And Zelgadiss!" He couldn't locate either Xel or Lina.

Zelgadiss heard Valgaav's shouting from behind him. He kicked an attacker in the gut and turned to look. "Yes!" He elbowed a man out of his way and set out, cutting a swath to meet Valgaav and the girls. "It's great to see you," he said, and then caught sight of Sylphiel, who was partially hidden in the deep shadows behind Valgaav. "They should be at the cabin." His face mask was long gone; his coveralls torn at the shoulder, revealing a patch of skin, which in better light would have looked pearly blue.

Valgaav leaned to the side as Filia reached around him, swinging her weapon and knocking out two hooded men before they could grab Zelgadiss. "There! Hey, I should be at home with a cup of tea, forget that stinking cabin," she shouted, and caught another on the backswing. "Ah, ha! And that! I knew those golf lessons were good for something!"

Zelgadiss noticed immediately that Valgaav looked far worse than he did. His green hair was matted, his shoulder wrapped, and his arm was bandaged and tied across his chest. His skin looked clammy, dripping with sweat. "What happened to you?"

"Wolf attack." Valgaav ducked a short staff one attacker was wheeling, allowing Amelia space to run out and trip the man jumping on him from behind.

"Wolf? Oh, that's what you were trying to tell me," Zelgadiss smiled. "Lina's up there," he said, pointing to the opening to the upper chambers with a blood-stained knife, the blade catching the flickering light from a hanging lantern and glinting wickedly. "You're hurt bad, Val."

Valgaav used the fireplace poker like a cattle prod, batting away at the men who seemed intent mostly on getting a hold of Zelgadiss. "Yeah, hurts like hell, too. None of these guys have guns, do they?"

Zelgadiss jumped agilely over Amelia's latest victim to get closer to Sylphiel. "Not any more. These are clones, at least we're pretty sure they are, so don't mind hurting them." He hacked an attacker before Sylphiel could raise her shovel.

"Where's Xel?" Valgaav asked, batting away an attacker who was clinging to Filia's hair, trying to pull her to the ground.

"He went down the far passage, but no one's heard from him since I found..." He punched an attacker in the face, sending him into the man behind him. "...Since I found, oh yeah, did you hear I found the coffin?"

Valgaav grabbed Amelia with his good arm and heaved her onto his shoulders. "Great, so we can leave this shit hole. Let's get Xel."

Zelgadiss nodded, although he was impressed with Valgaav's show of strength and decided to take up rock climbing later himself, if he ever got out of this place. "That's the plan. Head for the passage."

Filia and Sylphiel regrouped with Zelgadiss in the lead and Valgaav protecting the rear. They pressed forward until they were side-by-side with Gourry. His face mask was off, caught in his tangled hair, so when he saw their friendly face, his smile glowed past the dirt smears. "Hey! All right!"

While the others took in the grisly scene of the Rezo-copy's burial and continued to fend off the oncoming attackers, Gourry called up to Lina. "Jump! Everyone's here. Lina, jump and I'll catch you!"

Zelgadiss heard his walkie-talkie crackle. "Who could be calling?" he muttered and held it up to his ear to hear better over the din.

"Okay, you'd better!" Lina shouted down to Gourry. She swung her legs over the side, took in the scene below, and then leaped the final few feet, landing in Gourry's arms safely.

"You sure are dirty," he said, but he didn't put her down.

"So are you. Where's Xel? You said everybody!"

Gourry shook his head. "Not him."

"I'm getting some static from Xel," Zelgadiss said. "Now I hear him. He's with his mother, I think." He stood stock-still, not wanting to miss a word of what Zelas was saying. The blood drained from his face, worrying Sylphiel terribly, fearing he was about to go into shock. She clasped him in her arms, hoping to lend him some of her warmth.

Lina squirmed to get free from Gourry's hold. "Then put me down and let's go get him." On her way to the stone floor, she tore off what was left of her mask. "Too late now for that. Okay, where to?"

"In there, right?" Valgaav prodded into the passage with his poker. He heard an affirmative from someone, then lowered Amelia to the floor beside Lina and ducked his head to enter the final passage where they hoped to find Xelloss intact. Zelgadiss, stone-faced, pushed Sylphiel and Filia ahead of him, intent on his goal and oblivious to the crush of bodies and continuing fighting going on around him still. Gourry clubbed off any following attackers, providing the rear-guard services.

**(o)**

* * *

"I hear Xel's voice," Lina called over her shoulder, her voice hushed yet taut with excitement.

Valgaav seized her elbow, preventing her from running blindly into the chamber. "Wait! We need a plan. Listen first to what's going down in there."

Lina scowled back at him, saw her chance, and then slipped the fire poker from his grip. "Mine. Now, here's my plan: get Xel and get out."

Xelloss could hear activity down the main passageway, too, only he figured it was Lina, Zelgadiss, and Gourry, at last. He shrugged his shoulders. It was important that he appear confident, which is why he smiled so sweetly upon his mother right then– all his life his smile had been stretched across his rage, like a tightrope across a volcano's cauldron. "Okay, then, I'll go get him."

"No longer necessary. You had your chance, now you can wait and see how everything has been provided for."

"Like a table napkin," he muttered beneath his breath.

"What did you say? No matter, I just ordered my personal guard to locate him and escort him to me. They should be here directly; in fact, I hear them coming now."

"Minions? You set armed guards on my friends!" Xelloss started for the exit. "Are you insane?"

"No." Zelas charged on her son with dangerous intent, drawing her gun from her underarm holster. "And I will kill them all to avoid upsetting my plans."

"Leave them alone. It's me you can blame; they know nothing. This is between you and me, Mother."

"Who are you protecting, I wonder? Maybe I can save just that one."

"You won't hurt any of them, do you understand?" His eyes were locked on hers, even though he remained aware of where she was pointing her gun.

"You will choose one."

Xelloss said, "It's Lina. I am in love with her. Are you satisfied? Does that make me too weak? Well, you're wrong. She's wonderful for me. You won't touch her or I'll kill you, I swear it! Or any of them. They are loved; they have families, people who care about them. Have you forgotten Gaav? Milgasia? He'll have the clan armed forces landing on these shores within an hour of hearing Filia was harmed. Nels Lahda is the head of the White Shrine in Sairaag. You think he won't raise hell if you harm his daughter?"

"Now you underestimate me. You don't think I could fake an accident on this island to explain away their deaths? Are you so in love that you will die for the girl?"

"Yes. I've finally found something worth living for. I won't give up."

"And you told her this and promised her what?"

"She doesn't know, yet," he said, feeling as pathetic as his mother wanted him to feel.

Lina, still hidden in the passageway with the others, heard everything. Xel loved her. He loved her enough to stand up to his mother that way. It was easier to admit how she felt, knowing that. "I love you too," she whispered too quietly for anyone to hear. She wanted him to know, though. She had to get to him and tell him. "Let's go in there."

Valgaav's grip tightened. "Hold on, hold on...not yet. Give Xel a chance to get out of this."

Zelas snapped, "Foolish boy."

Hearing the sound of a gun being cocked was all it took to push Valgaav to action. As he moved, Lina jerked free, dashing toward the flickering light afforded by a lantern in the chamber beyond. The others followed on their heels, charging into the room.

Xel smiled as he saw Lina, hair stringy and clothes caked with mud, looking lovelier to him than any starlet or runway model. He pocketed his mother's box when her attention was distracted. He knew what it was; it was valuable, but opening it could wait for later.

"Stupid children," Zelas said with a barking laugh. She stepped backwards into the opening to the corridor leading to the labs, running her hand along the door jam, feeling for an alarm button. "Nevertheless, I'll take Zelgadiss now. The lab's this way."

Zelgadiss shook his head. "Hell no! I want no part in your fountain of youth schemes. You destroyed my grandfather, but you won't get me."

Zelas flipped her gun his way as a contingent of armed lackeys thundered out of the corridor and stormed into the crowded chamber. "Take the blue-skinned boy; I don't require him alive..."

Xel raised his arms, calling a temporary halt to the action. Time to play his last card. "Sadly, Zelgadiss isn't any use to you _at all_."

"What do you mean?" Zelas leveled the gun, and a deadly glare, at her son. "What do you know?"

"Zelgadiss' DNA samples, on which you've based all your information, were from samples taken when he was a child, possibly a newborn, correct?"

"Yes, get to the point."

"The samples we just recently collected tell a different story."

Zelas was impatient, growing anxiety that she had risked a lot, and overlooked something important. "What?"

"The accident involving Zelgadiss and his grandfather, Rezo, caused extensive damage to him. Most is merely cosmetic, but I started to wonder if it could be more serious when his hair continued to grow out in its altered state. So, I had another set of samples analyzed."

"No..."

"Yes, his skin and hair are just the outward signs of the extensive genetic mutations he's suffered. The bottom line is this: he no longer carries the longevity genes, they've been altered. He is of no use to you; none of us are. Sorry."

Lina stepped forward. "Right, so all we want to do now is go home."

Zelas may have been marginally sane prior to this moment, but with Xelloss' shocking news a crack arose in her psyche, then widened to allow the mind-corrupting poisons to seep in, disrupting her reasoning, and then continue to spread, splitting her apart. Zelas screamed, ordering her henchmen to attack the kids without reserve. The gun, once turned on her son, now was aimed at Zelgadiss. She would take him out herself.

Xel batted away an armed man. "Lina! Get out!" Zelgadiss was busy fighting off another man, blocking Sylphiel from attack. Xel knew his friend couldn't see the danger he was in. Zelas was going to shoot him! In the space between blinks of an eye, the many minutiae of the possibilities crossed his mind: shout, run, duck-- Lina would be safe with Gourry, but Sylphiel was pregnant and she would need Zelgadiss– that decided it. In the next instant, Xel leaped in front of Zelgadiss, tripping him and knocking him to the floor as Zelas fired.

Valgaav tore a gun from the guard nearest him and slammed it down, decking the man senseless with the butt end. He tossed the gun into the air, caught it one-handed, stepped to the side, aimed, and fired twice, taking out two more of the armed guards.

The rifles Filia and Amelia had brought were useless in such close quarters, and they hadn't thought to grab any of Valgaav's arsenal. Instead, Filia covered Amelia while she recovered dropped weapons. It was dark, which made it difficult to see. Amelia scuttled about close to the floor, avoiding detection. She was nearly stepped on by one of the henchmen as she retrieved what looked to her to be a cattle prod, but Filia shot his foot and his knee, sending him hollering into the wall. "Over this way," Filia called out, getting the two of them nearer to the exit passageway.

Gourry cold-cocked a guard in the jaw and took his automatic. He shot the semiautomatic out of the hand of an attacker just entering the chamber, fired off a few shots down the hall, and when he was satisfied that no more enemies were coming, he closed the door and turned his attention to the opponents inside.

Zelas' shot flew wide, missing both her son and Zelgadiss, but one of Zelas' men lurched past her, intent on reaching the fallen pair. Xelloss twisted to shield his friend with his own body as Zelas fired a second shot. "Ugh!" he gasped as pain exploded past his shoulder blade. Another bullet flew over Zelgadiss' head and into Xelloss' chest. The guard kicked him to the side and made for Zelgadiss, blade ready to stab the blue-skinned young man through the heart. Gourry aimed to kill and blasted the guard to the floor, sending his knife clattering to the floor at Xel's feet.

Valgaav shook Amelia and Filia, ears ringing with the shots fired in the stone-walled room. "Help me. Get out, now!" Amelia swung the cattle prod with all her strength, striking and disarming a man about to rush at them from the side, but she only managed to clip him on the free arm. Valgaav kicked him away, shouting again, "Move!"

But the wounded guard appeared once more, thrusting out with a long, knife with a curved blade. Filia screamed as it pierced her thigh. She wrapped both hands around the knife handle, which was embedded in her limb to the hilt, braced her feet, and yanked, wincing as the notched blade slid past muscle and scraped past bone. "Oh, gods!"

Valgaav took the rifle from Amelia's weapon collection and, without bothering to aim, blasted a hole in the attacker's gut. Amelia watched wide-eyed, nearly in shock, then jumped to support Filia. "Lean on me!"

Gourry pushed them out into the passage, then noticed Lina was still in the room. "Lina, no!" Without a second thought, he went after her.

Lina dove for the floor as Xel went down. "No, no... What stupid, brave thing you did. Don't you dare die on me!" Xel's eyes were closed. She couldn't make out if he was breathing in the dim light, surrounded by chaos, but her eyes spotted the dull shine glinting off the discarded knife. Hastily she claimed the knife and with one last look at the spreading blood, she muttered defiantly, "For this, she dies."

Lina sprang to her feet, blind to her own dangerous situation. She located Zelas, who was still holding her gun, barking orders at her few remaining minions. Lina, impulsive as her actions were when it came to delivery, was exacting. She carefully gauged the distance and the angle before swiftly flinging the blade, sending it arrow-straight directly at Zelas.

Gourry watched Zelas jerk her head in Lina's direction, pivot, and raise the gun to shoulder height. He couldn't allow her to get another shot off, especially not with Lina in her sights. He attempted to fire at Zelas with his own weapon, but it was jammed on the first try. Without skipping a beat, he fired again, this time hitting her hand. The weapon flew out of Zelas' hand and spattered blood on the wood pillar behind her. Zelas screamed as he fired again, missing widely, chiseling out chunks of rock and dust with a spray of bullets. He was about to fire again when he realized Zelas was no longer moving.

Lina had directed all her anger, all her grief, and all her hatred into her throw. The knife blade hit its target, passing through flesh and pinning Zelas' neck to the rough-hewn timber pillar as rock debris rained down.

Gourry leveled his gun at the remaining two guards, expecting them to drop their weapons upon seeing their boss was dead. Instead, they launched themselves in separate directions, falling to the ground under a volley of shots as Gourry finished off his round of ammunition. "That's all of them."

Zelgadiss had regained his breath, having had it knocked out of him when Xel fell on him. "Gods, Xel!" he cried out, grief-stricken when he could make out who was draped over his legs.

Sylphiel sank to her knees and started crawling. Some one was hurt and she was needed, and she was lucky that no one noticed a girl creeping along on the floor. "Oh, no," she said, pulling up alongside Zelgadiss. Her professionalism took over immediately. Sylphiel thrust her fist into her bag and dug furiously for material to staunch the flow of blood. "Come on... Got it!" She began pulling out wads of gauze and ripping at Xel's coveralls. "Hurry! Hold it for me to stop the bleeding." She plastered tape over the mass to hold it in place. "Help me turn him."

"It went all the way through," Zel gasped, face anguished.

"No, this is another entry wound over his h-heart," she said, choking up as she pressed another wad to the wound and secured it with safety pins.

He wasn't given more time to worry. Valgaav's one good arm pulled Zelgadiss the rest of his way to his feet, and gave him a shove to the exit. "Go!"

"Not without Sylphiel!"

Sylphiel remained crouched over Xel. Lina stumbled over bodies on her way to his side. "Is he breathing?"

"Barely. He'll die before we get him to Seyruun, if we can't get him more blood."

"That's it then." Valgaav pulled out his walkie-talkie one more time and signaled Sherra. "Valgaav here. Xel's down. Real bad. Zelas is dead. Bunch of thugs, too. What's that? Okay. We're taking him to the asylum hospital. Here's what you can do: call Dad. Gaav, yeah. You have a number? That'll do. He knows we're here. Tell him...ah... what I've told you and that we need help. Right, bring them to the Asylum hospital, where ever that is. You know where to find that? Sure you do. Fine. That's it then. We're going."

Gourry lifted Xel in his arms. "Someone get that door for me."

"Sure," Zelgadiss said. He found the button operating the sliding door, picked up Sylphiel's bag, and squeezed her hand. "This way, I guess."

Despite her concerns for Xel, Lina was still charged up. "I'll go in front. I've been there before."

Amelia and Filia limped behind, Amelia on one side and Valgaav doing his best to support Filia's weight on the other. They were chilled to the bone as the sweat evaporated off their skin, dirty, stinging with small cuts, aching from bruises. The shock of what they had just gone through hadn't even settled in yet. There wasn't time—after all, it wasn't over yet.

**(o)**

* * *

"I'm no doctor." Sylphiel and Lina had Gourry placed Xel face up on an examination table. "I'll do my best to stabilize him."

"You're his only hope now, Sylph. What's he need, blood?" Zelgadiss opened cupboards as if he might find the answers inside.

"We got some orderly dude to help you," Valgaav said. He shoved a terrified man into the room. "You do what that lady tells you to do or Xel dies. You know who Xel is, don't you? Well, these crazy people killed his mom and a bunch of others. So, he's your boss now and you'd better see he lives, or I'm next in line!" Of course, it wasn't really true, but the orderly didn't know that.

"Y-yes, sir!" He had no where to run with Gourry towering over him on one side and Valgaav positioned on the other.

"He needs blood transfusions," Sylphiel began.

"I'll bring up his work up sheet." The man activated the computer-records scan, located Xel's files, and found the required information. Within a minute, he had the IV setup and dripping fluids into Xel's arm.

"I need to keep him warm. Blankets?"

"This way," he said, leading Amelia with her both Valgaav and Gourry as guards to a storage locker with built-in warming trays. "Take a many as you need. More will automatically fill in. It's a continuous heating system."

"Yeah, you must need that with reviving clones," Valgaav growled. He had no patience left.

"Would you get him a few aspirins and some water, please," Amelia asked the orderly. "Valgaav, you should let Sylphiel check your wounds again."

"They're fine."

"You need antibiotics, she said. Those claws were just full of terrible bacteria." He couldn't argue anymore, and she knew it. He was worn down, his shoulder was throbbing, and he was worried sick for his cousin. When they returned to Xel's side, Amelia led her boyfriend to a chair. "Now you sit in line here so Sylphiel can take care of you. That's why she's here. Gourry and Zelgadiss can do guard duty."

Lina draped Xel in the warm blankets, while Filia, who was lying on a table next to Xel, thanked Sylphiel for wrapping her in another. "That knife wound is deep but clean," Sylphiel told her while tending to the wound. "There, all clean and covered. The bleeding has been minimal, which is great. One inch more and it would have hit an artery. I've got pain killers, tetanus, and antibiotics– all in shot form. After the injections, I suggest you close our eyes and try to sleep, okay?"

Filia nodded, tearing up a little. "You've been wonderful, so sweet. Thanks."

"You're welcome." Sylphiel smiled and patted her friend's hand, then moved past Xel, giving his IV one last check.

Amelia shivered and after gazing longingly at Filia's blanket, hopped up, exclaiming as he did, "I'm bringing us all blankets!"

"That's a lovely idea," Sylphiel said. She told everyone to sit still and let her treat their scratches and scrapes. "Who knows what you've gotten into?" Mostly, they needed to scrub their hands and arms, but Gourry had a gash on one hand and a few deep cuts to treat. "There's nothing that can be done about the air we were breathing. Zelas wasn't wearing a mask so we can hope the air was okay for us to breathe, too."

Zelgadiss wasn't listening. He sat cradling his head in his hands, miserable because although he had found what they had come for, it didn't matter any more. He had overheard Zelas telling Xel the truth, so he knew that all this was over something _so_ stupid,_ so completely _unimportant as adulterous grandparents._ So_ what? Xel was lying there nearly dead for nothing. _So_, they stopped Zelas. _So_, she wasn't going to use him in some experiment. Great. Zelgadiss would trade it all to go back in time and do anything else this weekend. And Xel would not have been hurt, or Valgaav, or Filia. Stupid, stupid, stupid. In particular, he couldn't look Lina in the eyes.

Sylphiel tapped him on the shoulder. "Come look what I found!" Her eyes shone brightly with excitement.

He was reluctant to move, at first, but when he noticed Lina smile he flew out of his chair and over to Xel's side. "What?"

"I think he'll be okay. Look at this." She held up a bent, palm-sized, metallic box. "I didn't notice it before in the dark."

"What about it?" Zelgadiss asked.

"The blood on his chest, what we thought was a bullet entry wound, was from the sharp edge cutting into him here. See that?"

Lina whisked the box away. "Lemme see that. Hey, you can see where the bullet hit and was deflected."

Amelia rushed back into the room, laden with warm blankets. "What's wrong?" she asked as she distributed the welcome heat.

"Xel didn't take a bullet to the heart like we thought," Lina started to explain.

Gourry snatched the book out of Lina's hands, examining it while Valgaav looked over his shoulder. "It's a book. Says here, 'Claire Bible'."

"That's not just any book," Valgaav told him, "that's got the whole Shabranigdo family history and lineage in it. I wonder where he found that?"

Gourry passed the odd book to Zelgadiss. "You ought to look it over, then."

"Thanks."

Holding a stethoscope to Xel's chest, Sylphiel said, "His lungs are clear, which means the other bullet didn't hit one or anything major. It's all good. I'll sit with him, Lina. You should rest now. You all should rest while we wait."

An hour before dawn, Gaav arrived in Phibrizzo's personal jet, accompanied by Xel's father and trusted medical personnel. They were met at the landing strip by Sherra, who wasted no time shuttling them all to the medical facilities and tracking down the kids from there. Gaav was a take-charge kind of man, and that's what he did, leaving Phibrizzo to attend to his son's transfer to the plane.

"We'll get him into x-ray for possible bone damage where he's swelling and prep for surgery. I don't believe the bullet hit vital organs, but he's continuing to bleed internally. You are to be commended for you fine work here, my dear," the lead doctor told Sylphiel. "If you are ever interested in moving to Atlas City, I'd like to have you join my medical group." The man handed her a card, which she pocketed with a polite "thank you." It could be a perfect way for her to accompany Zelgadiss.

"You're taking him to Atlas City?" Lina pushed in between the doctor and Xel's father. "Not without me, too. We got bags with overnight stuff and clothes changes out in some cabin."

"You must be Lina Inverse," Phibrizzo said. "Xel has told me a lot about you, and I'd be happy to have you as my guest at my villa while Xel convalesces. As far as your personal things are concerned, I'm certain Gaav can have them sent."

"Ah, thanks, but I'd like my stuff tonight."

"Today. It's morning. Listen, why don't all you kids come for at least a day to relax and get cleaned up. This has been a traumatic event for all of you, and I can see you need to talk."

"Well, we still have one more day of vacation due us." Lina asked. "You have a pool at this villa?"

"Yes."

"What do you say, guys?"

Although going home sounded good to most of them, the shock of so much violence was setting in. They did need to talk about what had happened and they did want to be near when Xel awakened. So, it was agreed that Phibrizzo would take the kids back to his Atlas City property. He contacted Gaav to locate the van of the kids' belongings. Gaav agreed to stay on at the island, overseeing the property while the government agencies arrived to assume control of the asylum and penitentiary. It would be a while before it was known what would be done with the family estate and assets.

**(o)**

_

* * *

_

Tired.

_Eyelids so heavy they must be weighted with sand. _

_Damn that sandman anyway. _

_No legs. _

_I have no legs. _

_Definitely no legs. _

_Cold shoulders. _

_Quiet. _

_Car faraway buzzing on the road. _

_Head so thick it must be filled with sludge._

"He's waking up!" Lina shouted excitedly. "Xelloss, can you hear me?"

Xelloss opened his eyes a crack. All he saw was Lina's smiling face, skin clean and smelling of antiseptic soap, or something was. Alive, he was alive. Lina was talking in a very animated way, and he tried to concentrate on hearing, but caught only snippets of what she was telling him.

"We're in ... Atlas City... your father's... hospital... What's that?"

He moved his lips, but no sound issued. Lina could read lips, through the oxygen mask, past the IV hoses. She could read "I love you" through anything. "Yeah, me too. I mean, I love you too, so you better not pull a stupid stunt like that again."

He could read her heart and knew that she meant what she had said.

**(o)**

* * *

Zelgadiss clapped his hand over the shoulder of his best man. "Here, Xelloss, Nels Lahda would like to return your lucky Steel-coated Claire family bible." He handed over the small, but heavy, metal-clad book. "I copied the family tree and history for my own information. Oh, and made a copy for Valgaav, too, though he thinks his dad's got a version somewhere."

Xel took the book. "Did you update the information?"

"Yeah, my presence is known. Me, the one with Rezo for a grandfather and a great grandfather."

"Well, at least you don't have to live with the shame for all eternity."

"No, I'll live to a ripe old age, odds are, but only a normally ripe old age, thanks to my mutated genes."

Gourry was standing by. He smiled, saying, "Ah, Xel, you were real lucky you had that in your shirt pocket under your coveralls. A 22 couldn't penetrate it, or you wouldn't be here today."

"Good thing that bullet wasn't from the 44 magnum," Valgaav added, "because one of those babies could pierce just about anything. Yeah, don't go thinking that book will save you from everything."

"Yeah, famous last words, like 'I can do _that_ with my eyes closed,'" Xelloss said, smiling back.

"Or how, 'bout , 'Are you _sure_ the power's off?'" Gourry put in, enjoying the light humor and being we his friends without worries once again.

"Right, and 'Rat poison _only_ kills rats,'" Zelgadiss added.

Valgaav laughed, "Yeah, or... 'Pull the pin and count to _what_?'"

Gourry chuckled. "I was with some guys hiking in bear country and one guy was about to go into a cave when we heard a rumbling like of a bear inside. He kept trying to tell us 'He's _probably _hibernating.' Would have been his last words if we hadn't dragged him away."

"Is that really true?" Lina asked, her eyes bright, enchanting.

Gourry nodded. "Sure was." He knew that she and Xel had an understanding, but as he had told her a few days ago, "Right now, I know you want Xel, but someday you'll change your mind and see how much you need me."

And she had replied, "I'll always need you, Gourry, as the great friend I can always count on, but I'm not changing my mind about Xel."

He thought maybe she really meant it this time and figured he ought to get along with his life like he was thinking. Filia was pretty and shared his love of sports and fitness. She had good business sense and seemed to like him, too. Yeah, maybe it was time to move on for himself, this time. He fingered the end of his braid, carefully brushed and plaited for the wedding by the pretty Miss Filia. "You have a famous- last-words line to tell, Filia?"

Encouraged to relax and not let Xel bother her so much, Filia jumped into the game at Gourry's bidding. "Yes, this one's great: 'These are the _good_ kind of mushrooms.'"

"Yeah, right, like: 'This doesn't_ taste _right,' and then you keel over and die, heh, heh..." said Lina with a wink.

"How about this for a last word: 'Well, we've made it_ this_ far.'?" Amelia asked, happy to be with her friends, who had gathered to share the wonderful occasion before they'd all go their own ways, or at least most of them would. It was bittersweet, but she was proud of Valgaav's decision to return to college and follow that dream first. He would visit her every chance he'd get, and she would miss him madly, but it was the right thing to do.

"Or," Sylphiel giggled, "It's probably _just_ a rash!" She leaned into her husband of one hour, bumping him and making him laugh along with her joke.

Zelgadiss smiled and blushed. He felt light-headed and happy. He couldn't believe how fast his life had changed. One minute he thought it was over, his friends dying for nothing. Then, miraculously, Xel's wounds turned out not to be as serious as first thought, they were saved and invited to recuperate at what was only one of Xel's wealthy father's villas. That was where Sylphiel kept her promise to Xel and told Zelgadiss that she was going to have his baby. Zelgadiss nearly, well, he did faint. She told him about the great job offer she had and that it would be waiting for her after the baby was born. He would go to college, they would live together in Atlas City, and, oh she almost forgot, his classes were starting in two days, which was when he interrupted her breathless speech to say, "Then we have one day to get married, if you'll accept." Now he felt very mature and thankful for the speed in which all the preparations took place so that he hadn't had time to become overly nervous.

"Okay, more famous last words: 'Now watch _this_...'" Zel heard someone say, and he laughed more, giving his new wife a gentle hug.

"Or... 'I'll hold it and_ you_ light the fuse,'" another person shouted.

"It's_ fireproof!_ Then blammo!" Lina said with appropriate arm gestures. Her heart was lighter than she could remember. As soon as Xel was well enough, he promised to take her traveling to wherever she wanted. For now, though, she was satisfied pushing him around in a wheelchair at the wedding of Zelgadiss and Sylphiel. There was plenty of food and no one telling her not to eat as much as she wanted.

"How about this one?" Sherra broke in, giggling. "I'll get a world record for _this_..." She swallowed another mouthful of champagne. "No, no... I've got a better 'famous last words.' How's this one? 'Don't worry, I've done_ this_ before...'?" She laughed at her own silliness and enjoyed the camaraderie of the other young people, to whom most of which she was now related. After discussing it with Xel and her father, Grauscherra, she was starting her own charter plane service. As soon as the paperwork could be completed, she, Xel, and the staff on Wolfpack Island would fly the planes to her leased quarters in Seyruun's private terminal area. Her life was really on track. Now, she hoped all her handsome cousins would find their ways as well.

"Or, the moment before the whole place blows up, your last words are: '_That's_ odd...'" Amelia said, tipping her head to the side and cutely tapping her lip with her forefinger.

"I think I actually _said_ that before Rezo's lab blew up in my face," Zelgadiss said, joking about the incident to the surprise of his friends. "Ah, how about: 'What does this button do?'"

"Or the corollary: '_Which_ wire was I supposed to cut?'" Valgaav put in.

Zelgadiss was pushing Xel to read some paper he'd been holding. "I don't want to threaten a man in a wheelchair, even if it's only a temporary situation, but I will. You said you had some insane thing you'd written. I want to hear it and then get the hell away from you guys and spend some alone time with Sylphiel." He chuckled when he said that, but he really did want one night alone before the rest of life took over again.

"Okay," Xel began, "You asked for this, remember that. I left it out of my toast, for good reason, but now, against MY better judgment, I've been pressed to read this thing I wrote yesterday while Lina was giving me a sponge bath..."

"Ewwww," Filia squealed. "I don't want to hear it! Just read it and get it over with!"

"Okay, here goes:

I once lived in the _Caesarean Section _of Rome. One day, while eating my lunch in the cafeteria, I overheard someone say that a large reward was being offered to anyone who could find Lady Cattery's lover, a tomcat of some renown. I was excited, so I yanked my coat from the _hangnail_ and flew out the back exit, the _bacteria._ I saw a loose border _colic_, a breed of dog used for _cat scans_, take off after something. Maybe that was my stray tomcat! I lost sight of the dog in no time.

"Hey, have you seen cats?" I asked the first person I saw in a_ congenital _manner. I tried to be friendly at all times because I didn't want any _enemas_.

"Try the upholstery shop!" answered a pasty-looking _postoperative_ man with the _grippe_ brand of postal letter-carrier bags.

"You mean the _Recovery Room_?" I shot back, questioning the man's _fibula_. "It's closed!"

Everyone knew that shop was closed on High _Colonic_, a Jewish religious holiday – there was no reason for him to lie unless he was _secretion-ing _something.

He just shrugged, "Either _urine_, or you're out."

I wasn't going to get any further with him, so I stepped back. Not far away, in fact _varicose_, I saw a distinguished and _impotent _looking man who looked like the Roman emperor _Seizure_.

"I am looking for a stray cat. Seen any?" I asked. "That other guy was no help at all."

The Seizure-look-alike smiled knowingly, "Yes, he has always been so _vein_. One time he got me so mad, I dang near _rectum_. I understand he just studies _art-eries_ in the museum. Anyway, no, I haven't seen any cats, but you might ask that lady over there on the bench. The one resting her weight on the _medical staff_."

I thanked the kind man and ambled over to the woman. She looked to be in pain, and so I asked what the matter was first.

"_Labor pain_," she grimaced. "I gotta bad boss at work and I'm always getting hurt."

"That's too bad, what can you do about the problem?" I wondered if she had thought about a solution yet.

"I have _tumor_ bosses than I need, that's for sure," she began with a sigh.

"Go on..."

"Well I need to get the first one's attention, so I'm thinking that I might play the stringed _catarrh._.."

"Could you please hurry it up a bit and talk _fester_?" I begged. I wanted to find the tomcat and get my reward!

"So then once I had _cauterize_, I would ask her if she wanted to live long and _dilate_."

"You think that would work?" I asked as I caught a glimpse of cat tail out of the corner of my eye.

"With the one boss, yes, and with the second one... Well, when all else fails, I'll just _barium._"

This creepy lady was not helping me at all, but if that was the missing cat I had glimpsed, then I had nothing to worry about.

"Excuse me," I said and took off at a dead run.

But as I started to move, _Pelvis_– the tomcat cousin to the famous cat singing sensation and, by the way, also Lady Catterly's lover– leaped from a low, flat picnic tablet and knocked me flat _prostrate_ onto the ground. It hurt so much that I howled out some _bowels_ along the lines of A, E, I, O, and Uuuuuuuu!

It was so great a cat call, that Lady Catterly heard it from her mistress' home (somewhere in _D&C _near the Washington memorial) and ran in search of Pelvis. How _rheumatic_! The lady cat and the lad were brought together while I was asunder, lying in a faint, an _outpatient_!

The reward turned out to be disappointing. The cat's owner offered me the _nitrate_, although I would have preferred either the day rate or overtime pay, but there was no one around to bid more, that I _node_ of, anyway. She would simply accept no _morbid_ for the work done. And that was that!"

Xel looked around. "So? What do you think?"

"You make a better pathologist than comedy writer," Zelgadiss said affectionately. "And I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that. So, with that over with, Sylphiel and I will take our leave. Our single-night honeymoon," he kissed his bride, enclosed her hand in his, and left the party.

His friends tossed white sand at their feet, which Valgaav swore did not come from the crematorium, and wished the newlyweds good luck. The friends laughed and continued trading jokes with the occasional snide remarks about the bride and groom thrown in. They weren't certain what the future would hold for them, but they knew that-- as fun as it had all been and for the time being-- working the graveyard shift was over.

End, Graveyard Shift Chapter 26

–**GRAVEYARD SHIFT– THE END– GRAVEYARD SHIFT– THE END– **


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